I E) RARY 
 OF THE 
 U N I VE.R.SITY 
 or ILLINOIS
 
 THE SPEEOH 
 
 THE LORD CHANCELLOR 
 
 DELIVERED IN 
 
 THE HOUSE OF LORDS, 
 
 June 29th, 1868, 
 ON THE MOTION FOE THE SECOND EEADING OF A BILL, 
 
 INTITULED 
 
 An Act to prevent, for a limited Time, new Appointments in the 
 Church of Ireland, and to restrain, for the same Period, in cer- 
 tain respects, the Proceedings of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners 
 for Ireland.' 
 
 PUBLISHED FOR THE NATIONAL PROTESTANT UNION. 
 
 SEELEY, JACKSON, & HALLIDAY, FLEET STREET. 
 LONDON. MDCCCLXYIIL 
 
 Price Twopence; or, 12s. per 100.
 
 The National Protestant Union having applied to the Lord 
 Chancellor for permission to publish the following speech, his Lordship 
 has kindly given his consent, and has also been so good as to revise 
 the copy. 
 
 Whitehall Gardens, London.
 
 A SPEECH, 
 
 My Lords, — It has been my fortune to attend to the course of this 
 debate more closely than most of your Lordships, and I must say, 
 that however widely the views expressed may have differed, I think 
 it cannot fail to be a satisfaction to your Lordships that the general 
 current of the debate has proceeded with a fulness, an energy, and 
 an ability, worthy both of the question and of the reputation of your 
 Lordships' house. My Lords, if with regard to so much that has 
 been excellent I might venture to express anything of regret, it 
 would be that there appeared to be in the minds of some of the 
 speakers something of a doubt as to what was the precise signi- 
 ficance of the Bill now before your Lordships. That such a doubt 
 should exist is, I think, not to be attributed to us, but rather to the 
 manner in which the measure has come before the house. My 
 Lords, in the House of Commons it was stated on one side of the 
 house, and accepted as correct upon the other, that this Bill was 
 merely a 'corollary.' A 'corollary' signifies an inference from a 
 preceding proposition. In the other house the preceding proposition 
 had been discussed, and had become the subject of a resolution. 
 That resolution assumed this form, — 
 
 ' That it is necessary that the Established Church of L'eland 
 should cease to exist as an Establishment, due regard being had 
 to all personal interests and to all individual rights of property.' 
 
 My Lords, if I understand the meaning of words, that resolution 
 involves two consequences ; it involves and implies the disestablish- 
 ment of the Irish Church, and it involves and implies also its 
 disendowment ; because if it does not imply its disendowment, I 
 would ask, what was the meaning of the reservation of one parti-
 
 4 Speech of the Lord Chancellor 
 
 cular kind of property, the only property that was to be reserved, 
 namely, individual property? The course adopted in the other 
 house was convenient and distinct, because when the time came for 
 the Suspensory Bill to be introduced it would have been vain in the 
 face of this resolution for those who promoted the Bill to have 
 offered it to the house as anything but a Bill designed to promote 
 the disestablishment and disendowment of the Church. And ac- 
 cordingly in that sense, and in that sense only, was it treated. But, 
 my Lords, what have we seen in the course of the present debate ? 
 I am bound to say that the noble Earl Granville, who moved the 
 second reading of the measure, in a speech to the great ability of 
 which, if it were not presumptuous for me to do so, I would venture 
 to offer my sincere tribute of admiration, the noble Earl frankly 
 stated that the resolutions of the House of Conmions were involved 
 in the present Bill : but to-night we have had new ground broken. 
 The noble Duke (Argyll) who opened the discussion this evening, 
 and who came forward taking upon his own shoulders the respon- 
 sibility of this measure, and putting himself forward almost as the 
 originator of the measure, and certainly as the expositor of the 
 motives and designs of those who introduced it before the public ; 
 that noble Duke, speaking as one of the authors of the Bill, stated 
 it had not a word of disestablishment in it, and as to disendowment 
 it was the greatest mistake to suppose, not merely that this Bill 
 had anything to say to disendowment, but that disendowment as 
 disendowment had ever been gravely or actually considered or dis- 
 cussed even in the House of Commons. Now I want to ask the 
 noble Duke, as he appears before your Lordships as one of the 
 coadjutors in the preparation and launching of this Bill, does he 
 mean to maintain that this Bill was not proposed to the House of 
 Commons as a measure of disendowment ? That question can 
 easily be put beyond the possibility of doubt. The noble Duke was 
 somewhat severe as to the use of quotations from debates in Par- 
 liament, and speaking of my noble friend, lately at the head of the 
 Government (Lord Derby), with a courtesy which I think might be 
 disputed, and a good taste that some persons might be disposed to 
 challenge, he said there was no person in the house who required to 
 be more watched than my noble friend. I beg the noble Duke will 
 watch me in the quotation I am about to make, and I beg he will 
 compare what I read with the report he will find of his own ex- 
 pressions to-night in the usual organs of information. Mr. Glad- 

 
 on the Irish Church. 5 
 
 stone thus expressed himself on the 30th of March, in introducing 
 the Eesolutions to the Committee of the House of Commons : — 
 
 * I think the tithe is not paid by the landlord, and as for the 
 assurance of the Catholic party, I cannot consent that any such 
 assurance ' (that was the assurance in 1829) ' should bind me 
 to uphold what I conceive to be unfair to the Catholics and in- 
 jurious to the Empire. In this matter, I say, we should exercise 
 our own freedom, and judge what is for the common good, and 
 it is on the ground of the common good, I ask you to consent 
 to the DiSENDOWMENT of the Established Church in Ireland.' 
 
 My Lords, I only regret the course which has been taken be- 
 cause I think it has led to a confusion of which we have seen 
 some fruits to-night. The noble Earl who generally sits above the 
 gangway on this side of the house (Shaftesbury), induced, I suppose, 
 by the blandishments of the noble Duke, and the way in which he 
 described this measure, has come to the conclusion that the Bill 
 now before your Lordships is ' a meagre and insignificant Bill,' and 
 one which involves none of those important principles which the 
 noble Earl who moved its second reading candidly admitted to be 
 involved. My Lords, that the actual provisions of this Bill fall 
 far short of the principles which are involved in it I freely admit ; 
 but in what way the noble Earl has satisfied himself that a support 
 of the Bill would not imply a support of those principles I am 
 unable to understand. 
 
 My Lords, I am very much disposed to agree with what was 
 said by one of your Lordships, that, although it will be proper to 
 consider the provisions and the working of the Bill, the provisions 
 of the Bill are trifling compared with the greater and larger question, 
 which was the subject of the first of the Resolutions passed by the 
 other House of Parliament. But, at the same time, I think we ought 
 not to conceal from ourselves what the effect of the working of 
 this measure would be, supposing it were to receive your Lordships' 
 assent. The mode in which the provisions of the Bill have been 
 dealt with, upon the opposition side of the House, has been some- 
 what singular. The most Rev. Prelate, who presides over the 
 northern province (Archbishop of York), pointed out on a former 
 night various consequences that would ensue from the passing of 
 this Bill. He was replied to by my noble and learned friend the 
 Master of the Rolls, from whom, if from any one, I should have
 
 6 Speech of the Lord Chancellor 
 
 expected an answer to the objections wliich had been made. What 
 answer, however, did my noble and learned friend make ? He said 
 he had listened to the objections which had been made, and was of 
 opinion that thej could all be removed in Committee. But if ray 
 noble and learned friend fully appreciated the character of these 
 objections, and had my noble and learned friend borne in mind the 
 jn-ovisions of this Bill, he must have seen that the only manner in 
 which these objections could have been removed in Committee 
 would have been by striking out every Clause in the Bill. But my 
 noble and learned friend was followed by a noble Duke, formerly 
 first Lord of the Admiralty (Somerset). The noble Duke spoke 
 late in the evening, and with a frankness and freedom which left 
 nothing to be desired. He said the Bill was one of those things 
 which nobody could understand. He said he had listened to the 
 objections of the most Rev. Prelate, and he concurred in most of 
 them. He said that, for his part, he was not responsible for the 
 Bill, and he could not for the life of him see how it would work. 
 He said further, that on the whole, he was disposed to look upon 
 it as almost impossible. But although it was unintelligible, although 
 it was impracticable, and although it was almost impossible, yet, 
 notwithstanding, the noble Duke was prepared to vote for the second 
 reading of the Bill, in order that, through the medium of an un- 
 intelligible, impracticable, and impossible Bill, we might convey to 
 the people of Ireland the conviction that we meant to deal with 
 them in a spirit of conciliation. Well, now, perhaps your Lord- 
 ships will forgive me, if as briefly as possible, and as simply as 
 possible, I point out exactly what I believe will follow from this 
 Bill. 
 
 I must, at the outset, refer to a matter which, though small in 
 itself, I should be sorry to suppose had not been noticed by your 
 Lordships. The title of the Bill, as it comes before your Lordships, 
 is, ' To prevent for a limited time new appointments in the Church 
 of Ireland.'' Now, my Lords, I am not acquainted with any 
 Church that bears that name. I know of one Church in L-eland, 
 which is described, in an Act of Parliament which has not been re- 
 pealed, in a very different manner. The Act of Union says, ' The 
 Churches of England and Ireland, as now by law established, shall 
 be united into one Protestant Episcopal Church, to be called The 
 United Church of England and Ireland.' That is the parliamentary 
 name of the Church now sought to be dealt with. And, my Lords,
 
 on the Irish Church. 7 
 
 I take the misnomer, which the Church has received in the title 
 of this Bill, only as an indication that the noble Duke (Argyll), and 
 the other compositors of the measure, were afraid to state boldly 
 and broadly that the Church they were about to destroy by their 
 legislation was, the United Church of England and Ireland. 
 
 Well now, my Lords, this Bill proposes to suspend for one 
 year — though, as was well said by the noble Earl on the cross- 
 benches (Grey), we knew from past experience that that suspension 
 will last considerably longer — the appointment of Bishops and 
 Incumbents of this Church. There are objections to this which 
 lie upon the very face of this measure. In the first place, I object 
 to it because you have at present a Church which is entitled by 
 law to the service of Bishops and Clergy appointed in a continual 
 succession, and you interrupt that succession and deprive the 
 Church of those services, not because anything has been determined 
 by Parliament, but because at some future period something may 
 perchance be determined by Parliament with regard to that Church. 
 My Lords, what does the resolution which is said to be embodied 
 in this Bill itself say upon this point ? — ' That, subject to the fore- 
 going considerations, it is expedient to prevent the creation of new 
 j)ersonal interests, pending the final decision of Parliament.'' Now, 
 my Lords, the final decision of Parliament is the decision of Par- 
 liament. The decision of Parliament is not the decision of the 
 House of Commons. It is the decision of the three estates of 
 Parliament, resulting in a legislative measure ; and therefore, 
 what is proposed by the Bill is this, that the functions and the 
 working of the Church should be suspended and placed in abeyance, 
 in order to see whether an attack to be hereafter made upon the 
 Church should prove successful. But that is not all. I object to 
 it also because, at the same time that it paralyzes the Church, it 
 renders it impossible for voluntary action to step in and supply the 
 vacuum, even if voluntary action was at hand. The episcopal 
 and parochial action of the Church is regulated by law, and 
 can proceed only through legal channels. So that, during this 
 intermediate period, the Church would be placed in a position 
 worse than that of any voluntary society in the kingdom. I object 
 to it, in the next place, by reason of its unequal working. This 
 is a measure which proposes to suspend the appointment of in- 
 cumbents where the patrons are Bishops, but to leave the appoint- 
 ments free where the patrons are laymen. So you will have two
 
 8 Speech of the Lord Chancellor 
 
 parishes side-by-side, the same in area, the same in poi3ulation, 
 the same in spiritual exigency. They will both become vacant in 
 the course of the year. In the one of them the Bishop is the 
 patron ; in the other a layman. The layman can appoint an 
 incumbent. The parish which is in the gift of the Bishop will be 
 deprived of its incumbent. On what possible principle, on what 
 rational or plausible ground, can you state to the laity of Ireland, 
 that of the two parishes 1 have supposed, one is to be deprived of 
 its incumbent, and the other is to continue to have its incumbent ? 
 But at the same time that the measure works in this way, I object 
 to it because it works blindly. It strikes at one and the same time 
 in the parish which has the smallest population, and the smallest 
 need for endowment, and it strikes equally and at the same time at 
 the large and populous parish, where the Church population is already 
 overgrown, and where the Church with all its present appliances 
 is unable to keep pace with the wants of the people. Observe, my 
 Lords, the difference between this measure and that which it pro- 
 fesses to follow — the measure of 1833. The measure of 1833 dealt 
 with those parishes — and with those parishes only — in which 
 there had been no service performed for three years. It suspended, 
 as well it might do, those parishes until arrangements were made 
 for incorporating them with other parishes. Under this Bill the 
 populous parishes of Ulster, where there is the greatest difficulty 
 in providing the ministrations of the Church to meet the demands 
 upon them, may some of them become vacant during the year to 
 which the Bill will apply, and it will be impossible to supply the 
 vacancies when they occur. 
 
 My Lords, these being the general objections which lie on the 
 surface of the measure, let me ask your Lordships to observe some 
 other consequences that would follow from its working, which have 
 not received the attention they deserve. I take the first stage of the 
 Bill, which suspends the appointment of successors to Bishops and 
 Incumbents. Have your Lordships considered the effect of the measure 
 on the families of a deceased Bishop or Incumbent ? There is hardly 
 any see in Ireland, and there are still fewer parishes, where the 
 Incumbent has not, upon entering on the incumbency, paid a heavy 
 charge to his predecessor ; and the security given him for this 
 payment by Parliament is, that he may in turn recover this charge 
 against his successor. 1 have got before me a statement with 
 regard to the position of seven Episcopal sees in Ireland, where
 
 on the Irish Church, 9 
 
 the suras recoverable from successors amount to nearly 30,000Z. 
 But when I turn to the position of the Incumbents, I find, in one 
 diocese alone, that of Armagh and Clogher, — taken not because it is 
 more favourable to the argument, but because circumstances led to 
 the return being easily obtained — the charges amount to 45,000^. 
 Your Lordships may, therefore, imagine to how considerable a sum 
 these charges amount over the whole of Ireland. You have 
 authorized and secured these building charges : you have them 
 registered by Act of Parliament : they have become a parliamentary 
 security. In almost every instance in Ireland the incoming Incum- 
 bent has paid the charges out of his little savings, and that charge 
 has become the provision for his family in case of his death. I 
 have before me an instance, taken out of many, in which an Incum- 
 bent had to pay this charge on taking possession of the benefice. 
 He had not the money of his own, but the Trustees of his marriage 
 settlement had 1000/. belonging to his wife, which was laid out on 
 this building charge, and that has now become the only means of 
 providing for his widow and children in case of his death. At 
 present that is not only a charge on the benefice, but it is a personal 
 debt due from the successor. A clergyman in Ireland, when he is 
 appointed to a living, inquires into the charge upon it, and considers 
 whether he has the means to pay it off, and if he is prepared to pay 
 it off, he accepts the living. The course I have described will, I am 
 sure, be attested by the right reverend bench. The incoming In- 
 cumbent pays it off by four instalments to the family of his prede- 
 cessor. Now I am quite aware that the incumbency will be handed 
 over to the Ecclesiastical Commission, as the Bill provides, ' subject 
 to the charge.' I quite admit the charge will remain a charge on 
 the benefice ; but how will the family of the deceased Incumbent, 
 to whom it is a matter of life or death, be paid their little pittance ? 
 How will they be paid ? The Ecclesiastical Commissioners have 
 no funds wherewith to pay it. There is no successor personally 
 liable to pay it. The Bill remains in operation for a year, and is 
 renewed for one year or two years ; the charge continues unpaid, 
 and there will be the greatest difficulty in recovering the charge, 
 that which ought to be paid without difficulty and to the day. 
 
 So much, my Lords, with regard to the action of the Bill in 
 relation to Incumbents ; but let me now ask your attention to a few 
 facts, as to the effect it will have on a class well worthy your Lord- 
 ships' consideration — the class of Curates. The author of this Bill
 
 10 Speech of the Lord Chancellor 
 
 (Mr. Gladstone) professed at the outset a tender and solicitous 
 regard for the case of the Cnrates. Let ns see how that regard is 
 manifested by this Bill. The average Yacancies of preferments in 
 the year throughout Ireland are about ninety. Take it that the 
 measure remains in force only one year, ninety vacancies will occur. 
 Of the preferments in Ireland one-fifth are in lay hands and four- 
 fifths in the hands of the Bishops. Therefore, seventy-two of these 
 vacancies will be in Episcopal patronage. The difference between 
 the incumbencies in the hands of laymen and those in the hands of 
 Bishops is very important. The layman is perfectly free to appoint 
 whom he likes ; he has no ties on him but the claims of friendship, 
 or personal preference. But with respect to the Bishop it is 
 altogether a different matter. The Bishops are the patrons in 
 Ireland, to whom the Curates may fairly look for the reward of 
 their labours, and if they do not receive that reward from the 
 Bishops they are not likely to receive it from anybody. I am happy 
 to say, from my knowledge of the Right Rev. Prelates of Ireland, 
 that this claim of the Curates has on all occasions been fully 
 acknowledged. I hold in my hands a very sorrowful list of names — 
 a list which is at the service of any of your Lordships who may desire 
 to see it — of seventy-five Curates in Ireland, who have, for upwards 
 of twenty years, on their little pittance of 75Z. or 100/. a-year, been 
 serving the Church in their curacies in the various dioceses in that 
 country where it is proposed during the next year to suspend the 
 appointments to the incumbencies. Therefore, virtually and practi- 
 cally, the whole effect of the present Bill would be — because it is 
 the incumbencies to which the Bishops have the right of present- 
 ation that the Bill will suspend — that some seventy out of these 
 seventy-five Curates will fail to receive their preferment in the 
 course of the year which otherwise they might certainly expect. 
 That, my Lords, is the glorious result of the first portion of this 
 Bill, suspending the appointment to the vacant benefices. 
 
 Now let me go a step further. The next portion of the Bill is 
 the provision providing for vacancies in sees. I confess that I 
 hardly know the exact meaning of this portion of the Bill, and 
 I expected to hear some explanation of it from the noble Earl 
 (Granville), but as he did not think fit to enter into the point, 
 I must take the explanation of it which was given by the author 
 of the Bill in another place. Mr. Gladstone says, — ' The measures 
 taken with respect to the suspended bishoprics are the same as those
 
 on the Irish Church. 11 
 
 proposed by Lord Derby in 1833. Those measures will serve the 
 purpose now.' That is the statement of the author of the Bill, 
 who must be supposed to know something about it. My Lords, no 
 bishoprics were suspended for an hour by the legislation of 1833. 
 The bishoprics which were then abolished were abolished upon the 
 death of the Bishops who held them, and were immediately, with- 
 out the delay of a second, transferred to the other bishoprics to 
 which they were joined. It is therefore a pure mistake to suppose 
 that there is any provision in the Act of 1833 that will serve as a 
 precedent for what the Bill proposes to do. But that is not all. 
 The Act of 1833 did nothing whatever with respect to the spiri- 
 tualities of the Church ; it was a Bill dealing with the temporalities 
 of the Church only. Here is a Bill which appoints certain persons 
 — we shall see presently who they a:re — the ' Guardians of the 
 Spiritualities,' and an Act of Parliament passed in 1833, which 
 did not mention spiritualities from beginning to end, is invoked 
 as a precedent for the arrangement. But, in the next place, this 
 Bill provides that ' the persons designated by the Act of 1833 to 
 execute the powers of that Act shall be the guardians of the spiri- 
 tualities under this Bill.' But no persons were designated by the 
 Act of 1833 to guard the spiritualities, and no persons were by 
 that Act 'designated' for any purpose. This is a strange mistake 
 to have been made, but it ought to be pointed out. What that 
 Act did was this, — it allowed the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to 
 select out of certain persons (the archdeacons of the diocese, the 
 dean, and vicars-general) some one, not to act as guardian of the 
 spiritualities, but to make certain official returns, which had to be 
 made from time to time, not with reference to bishoprics then sus- 
 pended, but with reference to any bishopric which might at any 
 time, even down to the present day, be vacant. The duties of these 
 persons so selected were merely mechanical duties connected with 
 the making up these returns. But that is not all. The Ecclesias- 
 tical Commissioners are by the present Bill to appoint the guardians 
 of the spiritualities in every vacant diocese. At the present time the 
 Archbishop is the guardian of the spiritualities of a vacant diocese, 
 and why is he to be displaced for some person said to be designated 
 in the Act of 1833, but who is not designated in that Act? But 
 the climax of all this remains. The framers of this Bill were un- 
 acquainted with the ecclesiastical law of Ireland. They were not 
 aware that the guardians of spiritualities, even if appointed, could
 
 12 Speech of the Lord Chancellor 
 
 not exercise those peculiar and statutory powers which are required 
 for the government of a diocese in Ireland — powers as regards 
 residence or non-residence of incumbents — as regards the licensing 
 and regulating of Curates, and other matters of the same kind, which 
 are conferred, not by the general ecclesiastical law, but by the 
 Act of Parliament passed in 1825, which makes the Bishop of the 
 Diocese personally, and not through his Consistory Court, the 
 judge in all the ordinary questions arising between the Bishop and 
 his clergy. Therefore, the appointment of guardians of spiritualities 
 would simply leave the Church where a bishopric fell vacant in a 
 state of anarchy and confusion, because none of those powers to 
 which I have referred as belonging to the Bishops personally could 
 be exercised by the guardians of the spiritualities. 
 
 My Lords, these are objections to the Bill which I challenge 
 the noble Earl to answer. But I will go a step further, and ask, 
 What is the provision made for filling vacant incumbencies ? It 
 is proposed by the Bill that vacant incumbencies shall be filled by 
 stipendiary Curates. I take leave, in the first place, altogether to 
 deny that it would be possible in Ireland to obtain, in the course of 
 a year, ninety stipendiary Curates who, for an engagement which 
 might terminate within a year, would undertake to move house and 
 home, and take possession of one of these incumbencies, for the 
 purpose of performing a duty during a certain number of months. 
 But I say further, that, even if this were possible, it would ruin an 
 incumbency to appoint a stipendiary Curate under these conditions. 
 It is impossible that he could have any sympathy with, or interest 
 in, the institutions or in the laity of the parish. To fill up a vacant 
 incumbency in this way would be most fatal to its permanent 
 interest. Take, for instance, the case of a vacancy occurring in an 
 incumbency in a populous town, where a stipendiary Curate is ap- 
 pointed under the conditions I have named. It would be impos- 
 sible to supply the place of the former Incumbent under these con- 
 ditions with a man equal in power to himself, and the result would 
 be that the congregation would be broken up. But here, again, 
 your Lordships will hardly believe it when I tell you, that in many 
 cases the stipendiary Curate under the provisions of this Bill could 
 never come into existence. The proposal in this Bill which relates 
 to the subject is, that the provisions of the Act of 1833 for sup- 
 plying the spiritual wants of suspended benefices shall apply to the 
 benefices becoming vacant under this Act. But what are the pro-
 
 on the Irish Church, 13 
 
 visions of the Act of 1833 as to supplying the spiritual wants of 
 suspended benefices ? They are to this effect : — It is to be lawful 
 for the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and for the Bishop of the 
 diocese associated with them to make the necessary provision. But 
 there may be no Bishop of the diocese, and thus you leave no means 
 of appointing the miserable substitute in the shape of a stipendiary 
 Curate that may be required. 
 
 And now, my Lords, passing on from this, I come to the mode 
 in which this Bill proposes to deal with the Ecclesiastical Commis- 
 sioners. When the subject was first mooted in the other House of 
 Parliament, a very frightful story was told about the Ecclesiastical 
 Commissioners. Mr. Gladstone said it was absolutely necessary 
 something should be done, because these Ecclesiastical Commis- 
 sioners were in the habit of manufacturing — of 'erecting' — bene- 
 fices ; and that within a very short period two benefices had been 
 manufactured, in each of which there were to be found only four spe- 
 cimens of a class which he denominated ' Anglicans.' That produced 
 a great effect in the other House of Parliament, and thereupon it 
 was said, We must have a resolution, not merely against Bishops 
 and Incnmbents, but also against these Ecclesiastical Commissioners. 
 A few weeks passed away, and it turned out that the whole story 
 was an entire delusion. The Ecclesiastical Commissioners have no 
 more power to create benefices in Ireland than any of your Lord- 
 ships. Some person, no doubt, had told Mr. Gladstone this story. 
 The truth, I believe, was, that two old benefices had been joined 
 together under the Act of 1833, or some Act of that kind, by order 
 of the Privy Council. The Incumbent happened to die ; the union 
 could not be continued ; the Bishop, I have no doubt for very good 
 reasons, refusing to continue it : and thus Mr. Gladstone was given 
 to understand that the Ecclesiastical Commissioners had created 
 two new benefices. Accordingly, the idea of restraining the Eccle- 
 siastical Commissioners from creating benefices has not appeared in 
 the Bill. But what are the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to be 
 restrained from doing, and what will be the effect ? They are now 
 to be restrained from making ' grants ' and ' augmentations.' Now 
 I want your Lordships to observe what the consequences of that 
 will be. Your Lordships are probably not aware of the manner in 
 which grants are made by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. They 
 are made in pursuance of the Act of 1833, and the way of making 
 them is this: — If there is a church wanted in a neighbourhood,
 
 14 Speech of the Lord Chancellor 
 
 and the inhabitants are willing to contribute, the Commissioners are 
 known to be ready to make a grant correlative to the sum raised in 
 the neighbourhood. The usual course, therefore, is, in the first 
 instance, to collect money in the neighbourhood, to purchase a 
 site, and, perhaps, begin to build. When the money is sub- 
 scribed, the subscribers go to the Commissioners and have a grant 
 made them. Now, so largely is this course followed, that I find 
 that in the last thirty years subscriptions were paid into the 
 Ecclesiastical Commissioners to the amount of 196,000/., to set 
 against corresponding grants, and during the last eight years this 
 ' slumbering Church of Ireland,' which the noble Earl below the 
 gangway (Carnarvon) contrasted so unfavourably with the Church 
 of England, has paid to the Commissioners — altogether apart 
 from sums expended without reference to the Commissioners — 
 no less than 103,706Z. Now observe, my Lords, you suspend 
 by this Bill the power of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to 
 make grants during the next year. And what will be the effect ? 
 It will be, that in those cases where money has already been given 
 — w^here, perhaps, sites have been obtained, but the grants have 
 not been actually made, you stop the power of the Ecclesi- 
 astical Commissioners to fulfil the expectations which have been 
 held out to those who have contributed on the faith of Parlia- 
 ment, and you compel the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to break 
 faith with them. But that is not all. What about the augmenta- 
 tions ? The case with regard to them is still more singular. The 
 work of augmentation has also been pursued by the Ecclesiastical 
 Commissioners since 1833. I think it was Mr. O'Connell who 
 said that this system of augmentation was the best feature in the 
 Act of 1833. That Act provides that all livings in Ireland over 
 300Z. a-year shall be taxed in order to collect funds to augment all 
 livings below 200/., and bring them up to that amount. Now 
 that process of augmentation has been going on slowly indeed, as 
 the funds have not been available to any large amount, but every 
 year a certain number of these small livings have been augmented 
 and brought up to 200/. Now I have got a list of those whose 
 turn would come next year, and I will just mention four of them, 
 in order to show the sort of cases they are. There is Christ's 
 Church, Lisburn, the net income of which is 125/., the Church 
 population estimated at 5000 ; there is St. Paul's, Belfast, the 
 net income of which is 125/., and the Church population GOOO ;
 
 on the Irish Church. 15 
 
 there is Newtonards, tlie net income of which is 135Z., and the 
 Church population 2500 ; and there is Miltown, Armagh, the net 
 income of which is 128Z., and the Church population 2340. These 
 are samples of the cases which would come next for augmentation. 
 But remember that the faith of Parliament is pledged to these 
 augmentations, because the Act of Parliament, which you have not 
 repealed, holds out this promise to the incumbents mider 200/. 
 a-year. Remember, also, that here you have got two vested in- 
 terests to consider, not merely the interest of the smaller incum- 
 bents, but also that of those large incumbents, who have been 
 taxed and whom you are going to tax for the next year. But you 
 have no right under the sun to tax the larger livings unless you 
 augment the smaller ones ; yet here you are asked to continue 
 taking the money from the larger Incumbents without applying it 
 to the benefit of the smaller livings. 
 
 My Lords, looking at the clauses of this Bill, which some of 
 your Lordships appear disposed to see passed into a law, this would 
 be its operation and effect. And I cannot avoid congratulating 
 the noble Earl (Granville), perhaps I should say the noble Duke 
 (Argyll), and his coadjutors, upon the spirited form which their 
 first effort at legislation upon this subject has assumed. They 
 have been ingenious to inflict j^ain at the points at which it would 
 be most keenly felt. The conscientious convictions which the noble 
 Duke (Argyll) admitted had for thirty years of office been so dis- 
 creetly smothered by the leaders of the Liberal party, have at last 
 burst forth, and a noble crusade has been formed — a crusade not 
 to rescue or protect, but to overthrow all that is sacred ; and the 
 first victims selected by the gallant band of warriors are the ex- 
 pectations — based on the faith of parliamentary promises — of miser- 
 able and underpaid incumbencies waiting for their long-delayed 
 augmentations, — the preferments, anxiously looked for and now 
 almost within his grasp, of the hard-working and ill-requited Curate, 
 and the little patrimony of the widow and the orphan, whose pit- 
 tance is abstracted if its payment is endangered or delayed. 
 
 My Lords, before passing from this Bill, there is one other 
 subject to which I would ask the earnest attention of your Lord- 
 ships. I am not going now to argue the bearing of the Act of 
 Union upon the great question of the disestablishment of the 
 Church. That is a subject which is much too long to be considered 
 to-night, and which may well be considered at some future period ;
 
 16 Speech of the Lord Chancellor 
 
 but I do ask yon to consider the effect of the Act of Union with 
 reference to the present Bill. Upon the construction and bearing 
 of the Act of Union, I will enter into no points of dispute, but will 
 take the construction put upon it in words for which the promoters 
 of the present Bill are in the fullest degree responsible. It was 
 only in 1856 — which, I suppose, is within the Parliamentary 
 Statute of Limitations — that a motion was made in the House of 
 Commons by Mr. Dillwyn, for the disestablishment and disendow- 
 ment of the Irish Church. Lord Palmerston was then Prime 
 Minister. The noble Earl who moved the second reading of this 
 Bill (Granville) was a member of the Government ; so was the 
 noble Earl near him (Earl Russell) ; so was the noble Duke who 
 spoke to-night (Argyll) ; so were the noble Earls beyond him who 
 were formerly Lords -Lieutenant of Ireland ; so was Mr. Gladstone 
 himself. We have, therefore, the collected opinion and determina- 
 tion of the Government of that day. Now, the only ground upon 
 which Lord Palmerston opposed the motion of Mr. Dillwyn, was 
 the Act of Union. I do not say that he had no other objections, 
 but that was the ground he selected as the answer to Mr. Dillwyn. 
 Speaking for all the distinguished statesmen who composed his 
 cabinet. Lord Palmerston said : — 
 
 '■ If that 5th Article has any meaning at all — and it is pre- 
 posterous to suppose that it is a vain delusion, and that it has 
 no real, substantive intention — it must mean, in the common 
 sense of mankind, that the Church of Ireland in harmony with 
 the Church of England is to be maintained. Parliament is 
 competent to deal either with the Church of England or of 
 Ireland according to varying circumstances, but it must deal 
 with those Churches not in order to destroy them, but for 
 the purpose of rendering them more effectual in their operation.' 
 
 I observe that Mr. Gladstone voted with Lord Palmerston upon 
 this ground. Well, that is a fair construction to put upon the Act 
 of Union, and it is quite sufficient for my purpose. I do not enter 
 into the question whether it is competent to Parliament to vary 
 or repeal the Act or Treaty of Union. That has not yet been 
 done, and I ask you this question, — Do you suppose it would be 
 tolerated — ^ would it be attempted — that the Church of England 
 should be the subject of a Suspensory Bill of this kind for a year, 
 or any other period, because it was intended at a future period to
 
 an the Irish Church. 17 
 
 •alter its constitution or stop its existence ? If yoii will not so deal 
 with the Church of England, I ask how is it possible, consistently 
 with any adherence to the Act of Union, that you can deal in a 
 different spirit with the Church of Ireland ? My Lords, I asked 
 would this be attempted with the Church of England. But I am 
 bound to mention one occasion on which the attempt was made. 
 The ancestor of the noble Earl, formerly Lord-Lieutenant of Ire- 
 land (Clarendon), in his History of the Great Rebellion, has given 
 lis an interesting account of the negotiations with the King at 
 Newport, in 1648, and of the Convention which was extorted from 
 the King at that time by the Commissioners who represented the 
 ■opinions and policy of the leaders of the Parliamentary party. It 
 is a curious thing, and one would almost suppose that the pro- 
 posers of this Bill had resorted to that precedent, that I find that 
 the 2nd Article of that ill-omened Convention is in its wording 
 almost the same as that of a Suspensory Bill. The consent of the 
 King, says Clarendon, was extorted magna inter suspiria, to a mea- 
 sure for suspending for three years the functions of the Established 
 Church in England, and for alienating and selling for the benefit 
 of the State the lands of the Church, reserving only the ancient 
 rents. That is the only precedent I can find for this measure, and 
 as such I place it unreservedly at the disposal of the noble Earl. 
 
 I have detained your Lordships too long upon this Bill. Allow 
 me now, to make some observations upon those great principles to 
 which, under the guise of this Bill, your Lordships are asked to 
 assent. My Lords, in dealing with the question of the disestablish- 
 ment and disendowment of the Church in Ireland, it will be con- 
 venient, I think, at this period of the debate, to get rid of some 
 points that have been referred to which seem to me to have no real 
 bearing on the argument, and which rather tend to introduce per- 
 plexity and irrelevancy as soon as they are mentioned. I think we 
 may assume that we are not going to hear anything more of the 
 'intelligent foreigner' and his opinions. I think we may also 
 entirely put aside any observations — of which only a few have been 
 made — on what are called the inequalities of the Irish Church, as 
 regards the amount of emolument received, compared with the 
 extent of the duty performed. My Lords, upon that head I have 
 taken the opportunity of asserting, and I think the warmest friends 
 of the Church have always asserted, an anxious desire to see every 
 subject of inequality of this kind carefully examined and completely 
 
 B
 
 18 Speech of the Lord Chancellor 
 
 redressed. I believe tlie Irish Clnircli has suffered much from this 
 not having been done before ; and for my part, I shall be better 
 pleased the sooner that work is done. I think we may likewise 
 put aside the reference which has been made once or twice to the 
 case of Scotland, and the course taken with respect to the establish- 
 ment of Episcopacy in that country. That case has no analogy 
 whatever to the present. In Scotland there was an Established 
 Church : that Church had endowments. No person proposed to 
 disestablish that Church ; no person proposed to take away its 
 endowments : but the question, the only question, agitated between 
 England and Scotland in the reign of William III. was this — 
 whether the Parliament and the Government of England should 
 coerce that Established Church of Scotland to receive a form of 
 Church Government to which it conscientiously objected. I think 
 we may also put aside this question — What would it be judicious, 
 just, or expedient to do, supposing we were now dealing with 
 Ireland as a new country, and were considering for the first time 
 the question of religious establishments ? That, my Lords, un- 
 fortunately, is not the question with which we have to deal. That 
 was the question with which the Colony of Australia, which has 
 also been referred to, had to deal. It was also the question, 
 though not perhaps in so pure a form, with which the Colony of 
 Canada had to deal, when we left the disposal of the Clergy 
 reserves to the Legislature of Canada. 
 
 One other reference, and one only, has been made to a case 
 supposed to be an analogy. I mean the case of Jamaica. That 
 was alluded to by the noble Earl (Carnarvon) who sits below the 
 gangway, and who was lately Secretary of State for the Colonies. 
 That noble Earl made a speech which was addressed partly to 
 the subject of the Irish Church, and partly to the subject of 
 Her Majesty's Government. With regard to the Irish Church, 
 the noble Earl appeared to me to say about as much evil and 
 as little good as he possibly could do. But with regard to Her 
 Majesty's Government, I am bound to say he said nothing except 
 what was evil. The noble Earl appears to think that, since the 
 occurrences which happened in the spring of last year, virtue and 
 honour have retreated from the public service and have retired into 
 private life. The noble Earl even proceeded to make a suggestion 
 that the Government, under the guise of defending the Irish Church, 
 were really only seeking to prolong her existence for a short time,
 
 on the Irish Church. 19 
 
 in order tliat they might have the satisfaction of destroying her 
 themselves hereafter. Now, my Lords, if that is an hypothesis- 
 which presents itself to the understanding of the noble Earl as 
 rational and intelligent, I don't know that there are any means of 
 preventing him from entertaining it. But I venture to think that 
 the Irish Church will hardly thank the noble Earl, entertaining a& 
 he does this theory, for the advice, which in consequence of his 
 opinion he tenders to her, and for the course he is about to pursue 
 in respect to this Bill; because, as I understood his advice to the 
 Church, it was this, that in order to save herself from this appre- 
 hended annihilation hereafter at the hands of her friends, she ought 
 immediately to surrender herself to be destroyed by her enemies. 
 And the noble Earl, as I understood him, is perfectly willing to 
 assist her in this operation by his vote on the present Bill. 
 
 The noble Earl, however, said that nothing could be so grossly 
 inconsistent as the conduct of the Government in defending the 
 Irish Church at the time when they were disestablishing the Church 
 in Jamaica. He said that the case of Jamaica was exactly parallel: 
 that the case of the English Church was not the same as that of 
 the Irish Church, but that the case of Jamaica was the same, and 
 there the Government was disendowing and disestablishing the 
 Church. Now, my Lords, what are the facts ? I am sorry to have 
 to state them to a noble Earl who was Secretary for the 
 Colonies. In Jamaica and other West Indian islands there are 
 Bishops appointed by the Crown; there are parishes in those islands 
 with x\rchdeacons and parochial ministers. Now, nothing whatever 
 has been done, nothing whatever is proposed to be done, altering in 
 any manner the establishment of Bishops, Archdeacons, and clergy 
 in the way in which it has subsisted ever since it had any existence. 
 From a very early period the dignitaries of the Church were supported 
 by the Colonies. The distress in the islands arising from emanci- 
 pation* was so great for the time, that the Parliament of England, as 
 a matter of charity, and as an eleemosynary gift, was content to pay 
 out of the funds of the mother country a sum of 2O,000Z. a-year 
 
 * It was subsequently exi^lainecl that this Parliamentary douatioa cora- 
 menced, not after the emancipation, but some years previously (1826), during 
 the agitation for emancipation. This, however, does not in any way affect 
 the argument. The point of the statement was, that there was neither Dis- 
 establishment nor Disendowment of the Church in the "West Indies. Dis- 
 establishment there could not be, for the Church and all its Offices were to
 
 20 Speech of the Lord Chancellor 
 
 in order to eke out and complete the salaries of some, not all, but 
 of a certain number of the Bishops and Archdeacons in those islands. 
 That payment has gone on for some time. It has attracted from, 
 time to time the attention of Parliament, and as the temporary 
 pressure of the islands was passing over, and as the subject more- 
 over of the application of the resources of the Imperial Exchequer 
 for Colonial purposes was better understood, a strong feeling was 
 expressed by Parliament that this contribution ought to cease, but 
 to cease only so far as the Imperial Exchequer is concerned ; that 
 is to say, that the Colonies which have the Bishops, the Archdeacons, 
 and the parochial incumbents, should be left to take this payment 
 on themselves. This grant of 20,000/. had been placed on the Con- 
 solidated Fund instead of on the Estimates, and therefore an Act of 
 Parliament was necessary. The Colonists are, I believe, perfectly- 
 ready to make provision for the payment of the Bishops and paro- 
 chial clergy ; and the whole of this great question of the disendow - 
 ment of the Church in Jamaica turns out to be simply this, the 
 transfer of the burden of 20,000/. from the Imperial Exchequer to 
 the Colonial Exchequer. Now I must express my regret that the 
 noble Earl, in his anxiety to make a thrust at Her Majesty's 
 Government, should have allowed his judgment to be so 
 blinded with regard to a simple, commonplace transaction of that 
 kind as to magnify it in his own mind into a case parallel with that 
 of the present Bill, and with the disendowment and disestablishment 
 of the Irish Church. 
 
 The Earl of Carnarvon. — May I be allowed to ask the noble 
 and learned Lord this question, whether the Colonists have under- 
 taken, either directly or indirectly, to substitute any payment for 
 the endowment for this country ? 
 
 The Lord Chancellor. — My answer to the question is this : 
 I believe the Colonists are ready to make provision for the payment 
 of the Clergy of the Church ; and as soon as the Act receives the 
 Royal Assent, communications will be made to them by the Colonial 
 Office, inviting them to put themselves in motion for this purpose. 
 
 remain in exactly the same position towards the Crown, and towards the Con- 
 stitution of tlie islands, as before. And as to Disendowment, the withdrawal 
 of an annual Parliamentary grant — whether commencing in 1820 or 18:30 — 
 could have no analogy to that kind of disendowment which Avas in question ; 
 namely, the alienation and secularization of property by law vested in and 
 belonging to the Church.
 
 on the Irish Church. 21 
 
 Whether, however, they do this or not does not signify a pin's 
 point in the argument. There was no endowment to which we 
 ever pledged ourselves. There was no contract whatever upon the 
 suhject. There was simply an eleemosynary donation of 20,000/. 
 originating in the distressed state of the island ; and out of 
 tenderness for the circumstances under which that donation was 
 made, the measure, to which I have referred, contains a clause, 
 providing that none of those persons who have gone out to Jamaica, 
 upon the faith of this donation from the Imperial Exchequer, are 
 to suffer during their incumbencies; and the Imperial Exchequer, 
 during their incumbencies, will make good the sums they have 
 been receiving. 
 
 The noble Earl, however, who moved the second reading (Gran- 
 ville) referred to Jamaica for another purpose. He said he under- 
 stood the Government had consented, in the case of Jamaica, to a 
 suspensory measure analogous to this Bill. The noble Earl (Car- 
 narvon) told the noble Earl he did not Imow how strong the case 
 really was, for that it was perfectly parallel. Now, what is the 
 fact with regard to this suspensory measure, which is a different 
 matter from the Parliamentary grant of 2O,000Z. a-year. There is 
 in Jamaica a very singular Colonial law, which is this,— that all the 
 parochial arrangements of the island are made for a term of years 
 only. They all come to an end next year (1869) ; the incumbents 
 and curates of the whole island hold their preferments for a term, 
 which will then expire ; and the whole of the salaries and of the 
 work to be done will then be subject to revision. In this state of 
 things. Governor Grant sent a dispatch to the Colonial Office, in 
 which he thus expresses himself: — 
 
 * The second measure is mainly of preparatory character, 
 though it will also have the effect of producing an immediate 
 saving to the revenue, of considerable importance in the present 
 state of the finances of the Colony. Under a Colonial statute, 
 the tenure of the cures of all the Clergy of Jamaica expires 
 with the close of the year 1869. At that time it will be legi- 
 timate to make any changes of system, and any reductions in 
 number and pay, which may be thought proper on general 
 principles. Great reductions in pay were made by the late 
 Colonial Legislature, at the expiry of the last temporary sta- 
 tute, by which the ecclesiastical establishment was regulated ;
 
 22 Speech of the Lord Chancellor 
 
 and it lias been perfectly understood by all parties here, that 
 the re-arrangement of the ecclesiastical establishment after 
 1869 would be treated practically as an open question. For 
 this reason I have proposed to the Bishop that no vacancy, oc- 
 curring in the ecclesiastical establishment, shall be filled until 
 a new scheme for supplying the religious wants of the island 
 shall have been determined upon by Her Majesty's Govern- 
 ment ; and in this proposal his LordshijD has acquiesced. I 
 now' submit this recommendation for your Lordship's decision. 
 Already by the provisional introduction of this principle, an 
 immediate saving, which I estimate roughly at about 2000/. 
 a-year, has become feasible, without public inconvenience or 
 personal loss to any one : the details of which arrangement I 
 hope to be able to send to your Lordship by next mail. I 
 cannot too strongly express to your Lordship the obligation I 
 am under to the Bishop of Kingston for the kind and liberal 
 support I have received from him in my endeavour to improve 
 the embarrassed financial condition of this colony, by economy 
 in this department of affairs.' 
 
 The facts are thus very simple. All appointments must come 
 to an end in 1869; and it would be very foolish to appoint, merely 
 for a year or two, when an entire change in the ecclesiastical 
 arrangements of the island is already appointed by statute to be 
 made. 
 
 The Colonial Secretary sent a despatch in reply, in these 
 words : — 
 
 ' I have to acknowledge the receipt of your despatch. No. 
 57 of the 24th of November, reporting the reduction effected 
 by you in the ecclesiastical expenditure in Jamaica, and the 
 steps taken by you with a view to a further reduction of it. 
 I concur in your views on this subject, and approve your pro- 
 ceedings for giving effect to them. I have observed with satis- 
 faction the cordial co-operation which you have met with from 
 the Bishop.' 
 
 Now I think all this was a very ordinary and very natural 
 transaction, Botli the Governor's letter and the Secretary of State's 
 despatch appear to me to be exceedingly proper. I believe the 
 arrangement has nothing on earth parallel with the suspension of
 
 on the Irish Church, 23 
 
 appointments proposed by the present Bill. If, liowever, my Lords, 
 I am mistaken in this view, if it is the case that Her Majesty's 
 Government do not, as was said by the noble Earl (Carnarvon), 
 come into court with clean hands npon this subject, if they are 
 guilty of the flagrant and glaring inconsistency to which he referred, 
 if that is the case, then, at least, it may not be unfitting, that in 
 the presence of the accuser of the Government, I should remind 
 your Lordships that the hand which is appended to that despatch 
 is the hand of the Earl of Carnarvon. 
 
 Now, my Lords, as regards the disestablishment and disendow- 
 ment of the Irish Church, which is the real principle of this Bill, 
 there are two questions which have to be considered — Justice and 
 Policy. It has been repeatedly said that the endowment and estab- 
 ment of the Irish Church are an injustice. If, however, anything 
 is unjust, there can never be much difficulty in putting your finger 
 upon that which constitutes the injustice, and I listened to this 
 debate with some interest to know whether we should be informed 
 by any of the speakers what the injustice, as regards the position of 
 the Irish Church and its endowments, was said to be. Well, my 
 Lords, what is the injustice ? If these endowments belonged to 
 any other Church or body, I should admit at once that it was a 
 great injustice, and that the Church ought not to have them. 
 But is it contended that these endowments belong to any other 
 Church ? Is it contended that they belong to the Roman Catholic 
 Church ? Do you intend to give them to the Roman Catholic 
 Church ? Why, the Roman Catholic Church say that they don't 
 claim them, that they don't want them, and that they won't have 
 them. There is no case, therefore, of a rival claimant demanding 
 these endowments, and asserting that they properly belong to them. 
 Then is the injustice this, that wherever you have an established 
 Church, with endowments, that is of itself an injustice and an in- 
 equality as regards every person who is not a member of it ? My 
 Lords, depend u]3on it, we must face this question and must make 
 up our minds how to answer it if that is said to be the injustice. 
 Is the existence of the Irish Church, with its endowments, an in- 
 justice to every one who does not belong to it? If this is the 
 theory we are to adopt, then I maintain that it does not matter 
 whether those who do not belong to it are five thousand or five 
 millions. The injustice, if injustice there be, as regards individuals, 
 is the same. There can be no greater injustice as regards each
 
 24 Speech of the Lord Chancellor 
 
 individual of the five millions than there would be towards each 
 individual of the five thousand. Therefore, if that principle is to 
 be laid down in support of this measure, it is one which applies to 
 this country as well as to Ireland. A petition was presented the 
 other night by a noble Lord (Lord Lyttelton), which I am desirous 
 of treating with every respect. The petitioners stated that the Irish 
 Church was an injustice, and that they could not support an in- 
 justice. I said to myself, ' Here are philosophers, literary men, 
 men of reputation ; I shall now hear Avhat the injustice is.' I read 
 the petition and found the usual dogmatic statement, that the 
 Irish Church, with its endowments, was an injustice, but I found 
 nothing more. The question was thus left just where it had been. 
 But the noble Lord who presented the petition took the trouble 
 of giving your Lordships an explanation on the subject. If I am 
 wrong he will correct me. He said that he did not understand 
 that all those who had signed the petition, or the greater number 
 of them, approved the scheme brought forward in connexion with 
 the present Bill. Many, or some of them, were in favour of a plan 
 for dividing the endowments of the Irish Church among the various 
 denominations in Ireland. Now, if these petitioners have adopted 
 the view that these endowments belong to all the different religious 
 denominations in Ireland, I agree with them that the present appro- 
 priation of these endowments is an injustice. I do not agree with 
 them in their first proposition, that these endowments do belong to all 
 the religious persuasions, but if they have arrived at that view I 
 can see what they mean by an injustice, and the conclusion at which 
 they arrive is what might be expected from logical men. But, 
 then, my Lords, that petition is not one in favour of this Bill, and 
 the petitioners, on the contrary, are contending for a principle dis- 
 owned by the promoters of this Bill. 
 
 Well, but then it is said that the majority in Ireland do not 
 accept the services of the Established Church, but profess a dif- 
 ferent religion, and that in this lies the injustice of the Establish- 
 ment. Now, my Lords, if that is the principle we are to adopt, if 
 what is just when those who have the endowments are in the 
 majority is unjust when those who have them are in the minority, 
 then the logical consequence must be that the majority are entitled 
 to the endowments. I ask the noble Earl, who moves the second 
 reading (Granville), Is it his proposal that the endowments of the 
 Irish Church should be transferred to the Roman Catholics ; or is
 
 on the Irish Church. 25' 
 
 it that they should by divided among all denominations ; or is it 
 that the majority, whoever they may be, should have these endow- 
 ments? If he repudiates each of these three proposals, then I 
 am unable to see what is the injustice which he is going ta 
 remedy. 
 
 Now, my Lords, one word about numbers — a difficult and 
 delicate subject to enter on. The point to be considered seems ta 
 me to be this, Is the connexion between Church and State an Im- 
 perial question, or a local question ? If it is an Imperial question, 
 I apprehend that the numbers you have to look to are the numbers- 
 of the empire. If it be a local question, I want to know how far 
 are you going to localize it ? Are you going to stop at localizing 
 it in Ireland? Why should not a proposition be made to locahze it 
 in Wales ? You may depend that if you treat this as a local 
 question, you must be prepared to carry out that principle far be- 
 yond the case of the Irish Church. If the question of Church and 
 State is to be dealt with according to the exigencies of different 
 localities, you cannot stop short at Ireland. Let me take a question, 
 which is analogous. You have now a Protestant Sovereign, a Pro- 
 testant head of the State, laws to secure that the head of the State- 
 shall always be a Protestant. Is that an Imperial principle? I 
 apprehend it is. That law is enacted and maintained because tli& 
 great majority of the people of the empire hold it to be a good law. 
 But I want to know, if the question of the connexion between 
 Church and State be a local question, why the principle that the 
 head of the State should be a Protestant should not also be a 
 local question ; and, if so, why should not the people of Ireland 
 express an opinion upon it ? Why should not an agitation be got 
 up in Ireland to treat this principle as an Irish and not an Imperial 
 question? My Lords, this is not so chimerical a supposition a& 
 some of your Lordships might be inclined to suppose. At a meeting 
 of the Defence Association, of which Cardinal Cullen is the Presi- 
 dent, it has been made a subject of complaint that a law of this 
 country inflicts the grievous hardship on Eoman Catholics of 
 entailing a forfeiture of the Crown on any Sovereign of the United 
 Kingdom who should be converted to, what is termed in the reso- 
 lution, ' genuine Christianity.' More than that. My Lords, a 
 supporter of this Bill in the House of Commons, more advanced or 
 more candid than his fellows, has made a proposition, which, I be- 
 lieve, has not yet been considered, that the declaration which securer
 
 2G Sjoeech of the Lord Chancellor 
 
 that tlie Sovereign should make a profession of the Protestant 
 religion, should be wiped out of the Coronation-ceremony. 
 
 My Lords, I have thus tried, and tried in vain, to find out what 
 is the injustice complained of by the advocates of this Bill ; and 
 now let me ask you — for this question of injustice has two aspects 
 — to consider what is the injustice on the other side? The subject 
 is too broad to take in all its details, but let me refer, in 
 order to show the working of a measure of disendowment, to two 
 important elements of the property of the Irish Church. I will 
 take first the glebe-lands. I do not mean the glebes themselves, 
 for they are comparatively small matters, nor do I sj^eak of the 
 small patches round the residences of the clergy ; I speak of the 
 glebe-lands constituting a large item in the property of the Church- 
 in Ireland. The glebe-lands in Ireland amount in round numbers 
 to 133,000 acres. In the province of Armagh alone they amount 
 to about 112,000 acres. I do not suppose I overstate the value of 
 these lands — they are said to be about the best in Ireland — when 
 I say that they are worth considerably more than 100,000Z. a-year. 
 Now what is the title to that property, and how were these glebe- 
 lands given ? Let me read to your Lordships a very short extract 
 from Mr. Hallam's account of the settlement of Ulster by James 
 the First. He says, — 
 
 * From a sense of the error committed in the Queen's time 
 by granting vast tracts to single persons, the lands were 
 distributed in three classes, of 2000, 1500, and 1000 English 
 acres; and in every county one half of the assignments was 
 to the smallest, the rest to the other two classes. Those who 
 received 2000 acres were bound within four years to build a 
 castle and bawn, or strong court-yard ; the second class within 
 two years to build a stone or brick house with a bawn ; the third 
 class, a bawn only. The first were to plant on their lands 
 within three years forty- eight able men, eighteen years old or 
 upwards, born in England or the inland parts of Scotland ; the 
 others to do the same, in proportion to their estates. All the 
 grantees were to reside within five years, in person or by 
 approved agents, and to keep sufficient store of arms. They 
 v,ere not to alienate their lands without the King's license, 
 nor to let them for less than twenty-one years. Their tenants 
 were to live in houses built in the English manner, and not 
 dispersed, but in villages.'
 
 on the Irish Church. 27 
 
 That was the scheme of settlement generally, but the instruc- 
 tions with regard to assigning glebes were in these words : — 
 
 ^ The Commissioners are to assign to the incumbent of each 
 parish a glebe, after the rate of threescore acres for every 
 thousand acres within the parishes, in the most convenient 
 places, or nearest to the churches ; and, for the more certainty, 
 to give such glebe a certain name, whereby it may be known.' 
 
 My Lords, the Commissioners proceeded under that order to 
 allot the glebe-lands ; and if your Lordships have the curiosity to 
 look into the matter you will find in your library, through the recent 
 publication of the Patent Rolls, the terms of the grant of every 
 one of those glebes. I will take the limitations of two of these, by 
 way of example : — 
 
 ' To hold for ever to the incumbent and his successors in 
 free, pure, and perpetual alms for all services ' (a title in 
 frankalmoign, as good a title as a fee-simple), ' with a covenant 
 for the building of glebe-houses ; and in default His Majesty 
 reserves permission to enter, and by the hands of the dean, 
 archdeacon, and two justices of the peace, to collect the issues 
 and profits of the lands until the buildings shall be finished ; 
 and no person shall let or set any of the glebes contrary to 
 His late Majesty's instructions, upon pain of forfeiture of five 
 shillings an acre.' 
 
 In another grant, the only other example that I shall give: — 
 
 ^ All the preceding lands are to be held by the incumbents 
 and their successors for ever, in free, pure, and perpetual 
 alms, on condition that they shall build substantial residences.' 
 
 Now, my Lords, observe what the consequences were. This 
 was the plantation and settlement of Ulster. Not only did 
 the ^ incumbents settle and comply with the conditions imposed, 
 not only did they reclaim the lands allotted to them, but the 
 settlers who took the thousand acres, less the sixty, induced by 
 this grant for the maintenance of their religion, imported or immi- 
 grated with other Scotch and English settlers. They reclaimed the 
 land of Leister, and that ;..rovince, which, according to Sir John 
 Davis, was immediately before one waste and desolate wilderness, 
 became the Garden of L-eland. Money was laid out upon it, men 
 came into the country and settled there with their families, and if
 
 28 Speech of the Lord Chancellor 
 
 you now touch these glebe-lands, which were so granted, you un- 
 settle the Settlement of Ulster. Yon take away that which was- 
 the most important element of the settlement ; you interfere not 
 merely with the interests of the incumbent and his successors, but 
 those rights and interests of the laity who staked their fortunes in 
 Ulster and made Ulster what it is, you entirely confiscate. I need 
 not remind your Lordships that the greatest amount of wealth,, 
 prosperity, and energy that was ever brought into Ireland, was 
 introduced by means of that very settlement. 
 
 So much for the glebe-lands and for the 100,000/. or 200,000/., 
 a-year of the income of the Irish Church which the glebe-lands re- 
 present. NoAv, my Lords, turn for a moment to the tithe rent-charge. 
 I cannot at this hour go into the history of that portion of the 
 possessions of the Church, and after the speech of my right reverend! 
 friend this evening, what I can say must fall far short of what you 
 have already heard. But I ask you to take one short and simple 
 view of the results of confiscating the tithe rent-charge. Eight- 
 ninths of the land in Ireland belongs to Protestants. The pur- 
 chasers in the Encuml)ered Estates Court were, it is well known^, 
 as to the great majority, Protestants also. Now let me ask your 
 Lordships to take the case of a single one of these purchasers, for 
 we shall never understand the bearing of the question till we look 
 at individual cases. Let me suppose the case of a purchaser of 
 land who buys a whole parish. He is a Protestant, he naturally 
 looks for the enjoyment and instruction of his religion, and to the 
 advantage of having a parochial clergyman upon his estate. He 
 knows that in some way or other this parochial clergyman must be 
 provided for, and he knows, when he buys or inherits the land, that 
 there will be payable out of it a sum (say) of 500/. a-year, tithe rent- 
 charge, which will be applicable to the support of that minister 
 whose ministrations he values. Now, if you confiscate the rent- 
 charge and apply it to secular purposes, what is the practical effect 
 on the layman? Never mind the clergyman, let him take care of 
 himself for the present. You thereby require this Protestant 
 owner, the purchaser of a whole parish, to provide another 500/. 
 a-year in order therewith to provide for the minister whose former 
 means of support you have confiscated. That brings us face to 
 face with the character of this measure. It is not a measure in 
 which the vested interests of the clergy are really so much at stake. 
 And I can conceive nothing more nearly approaching to mockery
 
 on the Irish Church. 29 
 
 than a resolution which says that the Irish Church is to cease, due 
 regard being had to all personal interests and individual rights of 
 property, — that being afterwards interpreted as meaning the in- 
 dividual interests and rights of property of the clergy. I am very 
 anxious for the clergy and their well-being ; but they appear to 
 ■me to be of all persons the least interested in this question, because 
 their interests for life are to be secured. The persons whose in- 
 terests are overlooked are the laity. I have given your Lordships 
 •an instance : a proprietor buys a parish knowing that there are 
 certain outgoings intended to provide for a clergyman ; having 
 bought the parish, he finds these outgoings confiscated by your 
 legislation to some wholly foreign purpose, and is by that means 
 compelled to supply the deficiency by another payment of equal 
 amount which he never reckoned upon at all. Let me put a homely 
 illustration. Here is a parish-hospital with ample endowments for 
 its support ; let us suppose that an enlightened legislator resolves 
 to apply its endowments to some other purpose, providing at the 
 same time that all vested interests shall be respected. The hos- 
 pital is full of patients, and it has a good staff of medical and 
 other officers. An actuary is brought in to value the amount of 
 interest which each patient may be supposed to have for his sojourn 
 in the hospital, and to value the life -interests of the staff. The 
 amount of this valuation is secured, and then it is said that all 
 vested interests are respected. No doubt all interests are respected, 
 .except the not unimportant interest of the parish for which the 
 liospital was originally intended. And then, my Lords, if this 
 enlightened legislator were to find that the compensation took up 
 two-fifths of the endowment, he would, according to the views of the 
 promoter of this Bill, tell us that he preserved for the hospital 
 two-fifths of its property ! Now, this is exactly what you propose 
 to do with the Church ; the clergy are all to be compensated with 
 money, the parishes are to be simply robbed of their endowments. 
 
 Now, my Lords, let us turn to the policy of the question, — 
 the pacification of Ireland. That was a question dealt with 
 rsomewhat summarily by the noble Earl (Clarendon). The noble 
 Earl, who has had some experience of Ireland, said, ' I never sup- 
 f)osed that this measure would do anything for the pacification of 
 Ireland. I don't think it will, but at all events,' he said, 'if we 
 pass this measure we shall have satisfied our own consciences/ 
 That was the view of the noble Earl. Now, my Lords, I am quite 
 
 1
 
 30 Speech of the Lord Chancellor 
 
 sure tliat your Lorclsliips would be quite willing to do anytliiug in 
 reason to bring ease to the conscience of the noble Earl ; but at the 
 same time I am bound to say that when one considers the number 
 of years during which the noble Earl has been in office, and during 
 which he never, that I am aware, opened his mouth upon this 
 subject, I cannot help thinking that this chronic state of uneasi- 
 ness of conscience has not, upon the whole, caused him much dis- 
 comfort. But, my Lords, I think your Lordships would do well to= 
 consider whether this Bill, which you are asked so suddenly to pass 
 to the great injury of one class of the population, will have any 
 good effect in jDroducing that harmony we all so much desire to 
 see. Now what is the foundation for the idea that this measure 
 Avill lead to the pacification of Ireland ? In the first place, is it 
 the case that the Established Church in Ireland has been the cause 
 of the antagonism of races ^hich has so undoubtedly and so long 
 prevailed ? I should like to answer that question in the words of 
 a Roman Catholic historian, also a great poet, who gives us a 
 statement from the Roman Catholic point of view, as to the history 
 of the Church of Ireland. Mr. Moore says : — 
 
 ' At the period when all were of one faith, the Church of 
 the Government and the Church of the people of Ireland were 
 almost as much separated from each other by difference in race, 
 language, political feeling, and even ecclesiastical discipline, as 
 they have been at any period since by difference of creed. Dis- 
 heartening as may be some of the conclusions deducible from 
 this fact, it clearly shows that the establishment of the Reformed 
 Church in that kingdom was not the first or sole cause of the 
 bitter hostility between the two races.' 
 
 Now take the present time, and I ask, what reason is there for 
 supposing that any of these Fenian movements, which we all look 
 on with abhorrence, are in any shape or form connected with the 
 Established Church ? Has any member of that body ever suggested 
 anything of the kind ? On the contrary, have not the whole of the 
 attempts of Fenianism been designed to obtain possession of the 
 land in Ireland, to effect a separation of the two kingdoms, and to 
 establish what has been called the nationality of Ireland ? Well, 
 my Lords, what as to the Roman Catholic laity of Ireland ? It is 
 impossible not to observe that the Roman Catholic laity of Ireland 
 have discovered that the measure which has been so temptingly
 
 on the Irish Church. 31 
 
 held out to them, and wliich they have been asked to sui^port, does 
 in reality give them nothing, and may deprive them of mnch which 
 they now have. Every day I read in Eoman Catholic organs 
 appeals to the laity, upbraiding them for being utterly indifferent 
 to the great work being conducted in England by their great apostle, 
 Mr. Gladstone. Then, is there any foundation for imagining that 
 the Roman Catholic priesthood, with their great influence over the 
 laity, would, upon receiving a measure of this kind, induce the laity 
 of Ireland to be satisfied, and influence them to ask for nothing 
 further ? If your Lordships believe that, you will act in entire 
 opposition to the declared position and opinion of the Roman 
 Catholic priesthood. Your Lordships have heard of the circular 
 issuing from a meeting of the Tenant-right Society in the county 
 of Meath, the meeting being attended by the Roman Catholic 
 Bishop and Vicar General, and the circular being signed by two 
 Roman Catholic priests. In that circular they say, — 
 
 ' The one, the great, the sole question for Ireland, is the 
 land question ; other agitations, such as that against the 
 Established Church, are get up for party purposes, would infuse 
 an element of bigotry into the already sufficiently disturbed 
 relations beween landlord and tenant, would effect the ruin 
 of thousands of tenants, and precipitate that social catastrophe 
 we are anxious to avert.' 
 
 My Lords, I could not help being struck the other day by a 
 pamphlet which was sent to me, purporting to be written by the 
 Rev. Mr. Malone, a parish priest of Belmullet in Ireland, and who 
 writes to my noble friend lately at the head of the Government 
 (Lord Derby). He sums ujd the case of Ireland against England 
 in these words, and your Lordships will see that he does not even 
 mention the Established Church. His propositions are, — 
 
 ' First, that Ireland, by Divine right, belongs to the Irish 
 race ; Second, that England never had a right to dispossess 
 the people of Ireland; Third, that England does, nevertheless, 
 dispossess, extirpate, and indirectly put to death the people of 
 Ireland; and. Fourth, it will be a question for consideration 
 whether the people of Ireland have a right to resist and over- 
 throw any Government that thus violates the fundamental 
 principles of right and justice in her regard.'
 
 32 Speech of the Lord Chancellor 
 
 My Lords, if, as I am convinced is the case, this agitation 
 •against the Church is not an Irish but an English question, and an 
 English anti- Church agitation, let me ask you to consider what 
 will be the probable effect upon the Protestant population of Ireland? 
 I do not claim for the Protestant population of Ireland any indul- 
 gence, I do not claim for them any privilege, I do not claim for 
 them ascendancy of any kind ; but I do claim for them this : I 
 claim that it be recollected that they represent by far the greatest 
 ■amount of the education, of the energy, and of the prosperity of 
 Ireland ; and that so far as they have been introduced into and 
 settled in Ireland, they have been introduced and settled to civilize, 
 and to cement the union between the two countries, and to plant in 
 Ireland the seed of that freedom of thought, and speech, and action, 
 "which are among the most glorious fruits of the Reformation. 
 What, then, I ask, do you suppose will be the feeling of the Pro- 
 testant population of Ireland, if dealt with in the manner that this 
 Bill proposes to deal with the endowments of their Church ? I do 
 not mean to say, as has been said by others, that the effect will be 
 to produce anything like resistance by physical opposition. But, 
 any Lords, I do say this — that legislation of this kind, viewed by 
 them, as it must be viewed, with resentment and a sense of injustice, 
 •cannot fail to induce in their minds feelings which must in the 
 highest degree be detrimental to the realization of that close con- 
 nexion which we all wish to see prevail between this and the sister 
 ^country. Upon this point I am anxious to refer to testimony which 
 the promoters of this measure will regard with greater favour than 
 my own. Sir George Grey, when a colleague of all the noble Lords 
 who sit on the front Opposition-bench, and speaking in the House 
 of Commons on behalf of the Government of which they were 
 members, said, no later than 1863, — 
 
 * Whatever I may think of the wisdom and policy of estab- 
 lishing an exclusive Church o^ the religion of a minority in a 
 country, without making any provision for the religion of the 
 majority of the inhabitants, it is impossible to get rid of the 
 fact that this Church has existed for centuries, has become 
 interwoven with the institutions of the country, and could not 
 be subverted without a revolution. That revolution I, for one, 
 am not prepared to recommend.' 
 
 My Lords, in the same debate a right honourable gentleman,
 
 on the Irish Church. 33 
 
 who represents perhaps more than any other Member of Parliament 
 the Koman Catholic opinion of Ireland — I mean Mr. Monsell — 
 said, — 
 
 * He disclaimed all idea of supporting the motion from a \ 
 desire to overthrow the Established Chnrch of Ireland. That, 
 he admitted, could not be accomplished without a revolution, 
 and he was not prepared to face a revolution for such an object.' 
 
 The noble Earl (Russell) seems surprised at that opinion ; the 
 noble Earl will therefore allow me to quote his own words. I should 
 not venture to go so far back as 1846 if the noble Lord had not 
 referred to his opinions at that time, and endorsed them in the 
 pamphlet he published only last year. He said, — 
 
 ' I believe that with respect to what some have proposed — ■ 
 namely, the destruction of the Protestant Church in Ireland, 
 there could be no worse or more fatal measure sanctioned by 
 Parliament. I believe that it would be politically injurious, 
 because I believe that many of the most loyal in Ireland, many 
 of those the most attached to the connexion with this country^ 
 would be alienated by the destruction of that Church to which 
 they are fondly attached. I believe that, in a religious point 
 of view, it would be the commencement of a religious war; 
 that there would be that which does not at present prevail, 
 the most violent and vehement attack upon the Roman Catholic 
 Church, and that the Roman Catholics themselves would be the 
 first to complain of the destruction of the Protestant Church.' 
 
 My Lords, I believe these opinions are not overstrained, and that 
 the effect of this policy on the population of Ireland will be either to 
 perpetuate the war of races, which was rapidly dying out, or else (and 
 this is a result to which some agitators look forward with avowed 
 pleasure) to unite them in a common hostility to England. 
 
 Now, my Lords, for its effect on the social w^ell-being of Ireland. 
 That is disposed of in a word. There is no evil in Ireland, by the 
 admission of every one, so great as the evil of absenteeism. Dis- 
 establish the Irish Church, and you produce two classes of absentees, 
 which have hitherto not existed — one class, the Bishops and 
 Clergy, who have been the most numerous and most useful of the 
 resident gentry of the country. The other will be that class of 
 those laymen who, having no longer the services of the Church to 
 which they belong, will have every temptation held out to them to 
 cease to reside in the country. And here again I am happy to be 
 
 c
 
 34 Speech of the Lord Chancellor 
 
 able to quote the words of tlie noLle Earl in his pamphlet this year. 
 He says, speaking of the destruction of the Protestant Church : — 
 ' It would manifestly check civilization, and arrest the pro- 
 gress of society, in the rural parts of Ireland. In connexion 
 with education it would deprive Ireland of the Parliamentary 
 .grants which now flow from the Imperial Exchequer.' 
 My Lords, I turn next to the effect on the welfare of the Church 
 Itself. I admit that, as a member of the United Church of Eng- 
 land and Ireland, I look with great anxiety to this part of the 
 subject. My Lords, I do not wish to enter into any theological 
 iirgument. I certainly should be very sorry to reciprocate the an- 
 nouncement in the recent Encyclical from Rome, that one of the 
 dogmas of the present day, which are to be reprobated, is the idea 
 that Protestantism is a form of Christianity. I am willing to 
 extend the most perfect respect to the sincere opinions and con- 
 victions of the Roman Catholic Church, though I do not agree 
 with them ; but I may, at the same time, be excused for preferring 
 the doctrines maintained by my own Church, and for feeling alarm 
 and jealousy at any policy which would be injurious to the spread 
 of those doctrines. Now the noble Earl, in moving the second 
 reading, assured ns that he was perfectly satisfied, that if this Bill 
 passed, the Church would be amply supported : that she might 
 safely rely on her own exertions, and would even rise to higher 
 prosperity and greater vigour than she has ever yet enjoyed. My 
 Lords, even if this view of the results of disendowment were true, 
 still if the endowments are the property of the Church, the obser- 
 vation of the noble Earl would be but little to the purpose. It is 
 very much the same thing as if some person, surveying the ample 
 a-ent-roll and possessions of the noble Earl, and, being led by cir- 
 cumstances, to take what the noble Earl terms a ' calm and dis- 
 passionate view ' of the great inequalities in the division of property, 
 should go to the noble Earl and say to him, ' You are committing 
 ■a. great mistake ; with your commanding eloquence, your unrivalled 
 *tact and great abilities, if you would only be content to give up any 
 Tcliance on these adventitious sources of wealth which you possess, 
 land launch forth upon the strength and support of your own powers, 
 you would not feci in the slightest degree the want of what you 
 surrender ; and in a few years you would come back to me and tell 
 me how much happier, how much richer, how much more influential, 
 yon arc, and how much you find your general welfare improved by
 
 on the Irish Church. 35 
 
 having taken my advice.' I doubt very miieli whether the noble 
 Earl would think that a persuasive or consolatory mode of argu- 
 ment in his own case. But, my Lords, I deny that the assumption 
 is true. I fully admit — I am thankful to believe — that the spread 
 of the great truths of revealed religion has taken place, and will take 
 place, notwithstanding the want of endowments. But I appre- 
 liend it is an entirely different thing where you have the case on the 
 one hand of a church, that never has possessed endowments, which 
 has taken root, and extended its branches, and pushed itself for- 
 ward, from time to time, just as its strength and numbers enabled 
 it, and as means were supplied to allow its efforts to be made ; 
 and where you are dealing, on the other hand, with a church which 
 has grown up, and grown old in the possession of endowments, and 
 where, by a sudden and hostile wrench, you propose to tear away 
 its supports. I know that it is the fashion to say, ' Look at the 
 case of the Free Church of Scotland, how it has repudiated endow- 
 ments, and has provided for the sustenance of its own ministry.' 
 There is no kind of analogy between the two cases. In Scotland 
 you had a Church, which under the stress and pressure of con- 
 scientious conviction, was, by its own action, rent asunder into two 
 parts, one of which retained, and the other of which, for conscience 
 sake, surrendered, those endowments which had belonged to the 
 ■body as a whole. That same conscientious conviction, that same 
 pressure which brought about this severance, became, as it always 
 will become, a source and motive of liberal action, amply sufficient 
 to supply the place of those endowments, which, for conscientious 
 reasons, were given up. It is a very different matter with regard 
 to a Church, in which there is no desire to give up, no conscientious 
 scruple which demands the surrender of, its endowments, but whose 
 endowments the State forcibly carries away. My Lords, it is said 
 that the Church of Ireland ought to rest upon the support of the 
 members of the Church of Ireland. I have not the least doubt, 
 that in the large towns in that country the Church would continue 
 to be supported. It would be supported at a sacrifice, but the 
 sacrifice would be made and the Church maintained. But what 
 would happen in the country parts of Ireland, inhabited by a sparse 
 and scattered population, amid the wilds and amid the agricultural 
 districts of the country ? I apprehend that this would happen, 
 that the thinly sprinkled Protestant jiopulation of those parts 
 would either emigrate, or in time — and that no distant time — be
 
 36 Speech of the Lord Chancellor 
 
 absorbed into the religion of those by whom they are sur- 
 rounded — the religion of the Church of Eome, and become subject 
 to all the political influences connected with that Church. 
 
 And now, my Lords, I turn to the connexion between the 
 Church in Ireland and the Church in England. I do not wish to 
 overstate this part of the argument. I admit that there are large, 
 very large, differences between the Church in Ireland and the 
 Church in England, as regards the circumstances of the two 
 countries and the circumstances of the two Churches. But your 
 Lordships must bear in mind what you are asked to do. You are 
 asked to deal with this question, not in reference to circumstances, 
 but upon principles — upon the principles of justice and equality ; 
 and if you lay down the principle that the existence in Ireland of 
 an established Church having endowments is an injustice and in- 
 equality as regards any one who does not belong to it — and that 
 is the principle upon which you are now asked to act — then I 
 want to know why the principle is not to be applied to England ? 
 Supposing this was to happen, supposing the Church in Ireland 
 were to be disestablished and several years hence some statesman 
 were to get up and say, ' Let us look back at the debates that 
 occurred upon the Bill for the disestablishment of the Irish Church 
 in 1868, and we shall find it laid down that the Irish Church was 
 an inequality and a hardship upon those who did not agree with it, 
 and are we now to have this inequality maintained in England?' 
 Wliat answer could we give ? I do not see how the principle of 
 equality can be apj)lied to one country and not to the other. Is 
 there to be equality and justice for Ireland and inequality and in- 
 justice to England ? Bear in mind, my Lords, that we have had 
 ample warnings upon this point. These opinions are not mine j 
 we have had warnings on the subject from every body of men, who, 
 as far as I am aware, are anxious for the passing of this Bill. As 
 regards the Eoman Catholic body, do they say that they are anxious 
 only for the disestablishment of the Church in Ireland, and that 
 they don't suppose that anything that is done in Ireland will be- 
 come a precedent for dealing with the Church in this country ? I 
 was much struck by reading, only the other day, in the ' West- 
 minster Gazette,' a prominent organ of the Roman Catholics of 
 England, an article headed ' The Catholics of England and the 
 coming Election : ' — 
 
 ' The independency of the Nonconformists is a less unclean
 
 on the Irish Church. 
 
 A.-*«*%*«p^f* 
 
 thing in our eyes than the Royal Supremacy. We have suffered 
 less, England has suffered less, by it than by the fatal principle 
 introduced by the Tudor religion. In the work of disestab- 
 lishing, ^rsi the ivisk^ tiitii ike, Aiujlican Church, we can, though 
 without sharing their principles, join hands with the earnest and 
 religious Dissenters of England.' 
 
 That is what the Roman Catholics of this country say of the 
 anatter. l^ow let us see what the Dissenters say. Do they say, ' We 
 want to abolish this anomaly in Ireland, but to leave it untouched 
 in this country.' I take the words of Mr. Miall on this point : — 
 
 ' The Irish Church question will not be finally disposed of 
 before the public mind will be prepared to entertain proposals 
 in reference to the Scotch Kirk and the Church of England. 
 As it has been with one establishment, so probably will it be 
 with the others. Their time is fixed. An impulse will come 
 unexpectedly and from an unanticipated quarter. The ordinary 
 barriers will be broken down. What is taking place now is full 
 of encouragement to such as are content to labour and to wait. 
 They need not ask, " Who will roll us away the stone from the 
 sepulchre?" In the appointed hoar they will be relieved of 
 their perplexity by the intervention of some unlooked-for mes- 
 senger from heaven. Mr. Gladstone is but now treading on the 
 verge of a wide region of change. He knows not whither his 
 convictions will ultimately impel him. He may be regarded as 
 raised up and qualified by Divine Providence for great and 
 beneficent purposes.' 
 
 Bat the noble Earl (Granville) said that those who foreboded 
 any danger on this score to the English Church were ' prophets of 
 ovil.' Well, one of these prophets of evil is now sitting beside the 
 sioble Earl, and has just addressed your Lordships in support of this 
 Bill. The noble Earl (Russell) said no later than last session (1867), 
 in moving for the commission on the Irish Church which is now 
 sitting, — 
 
 'A third course would be to " secularize" the Church funds; 
 that is, to adopt the voluntary principle in regard to the Church 
 in Ireland ; to establish no new Church and to abolish the estab- 
 lishment which at present exists, giving to education, or to any 
 other object of general utility, the revenues which are now ab- 
 sorbed by the Established Church in Ireland. Of course this 
 proposal contemplates securing a life-interest to the present
 
 38 Speech of the Lord Chancellor 
 
 holders of benefices in the Church. This is a plan which I have 
 often thought might be realized, but it has very great defects 
 in it. In the first place, you immediately destroy, as far as 
 Ireland is concerned, the principle of Establishment. Such an 
 example would hardly be lost on the Dissenters of this country. 
 Although the cases might be very dissimilar, those who strove 
 for the destruction of the Church Establishment in England in 
 favour of the voluntary principle, would avail themselves of the 
 precedent to overthrow the Established Church here. I there- 
 fore think it would be unwise in us to assent to a Bill embodying 
 that view, even if it came from the House of Commons.' 
 
 My Lords, I am sorry to say that there was much of the speech 
 of the noble Earl to-night which I was unable to catch, but I sup- 
 pose I ought not to doubt that he means to act by voting against 
 this Bill, as he said he would not quite twelve months ago, for he 
 then held the opinion that it would be unwise to assent to a Bill 
 embodying the policy he then condemned, that is, the policy of 
 disestablishing the Church in Ireland, even if that Bill came up 
 to us from the House of Commons. 
 
 Well, my Lords, but then the noble Earl, the late Secretary of 
 State for the Colonies (Carnarvon), says that for a Government to 
 assert that danger may accrue to the English Church from the 
 destruction of the Irish Church is a wanton, — nay more, is a reckless, 
 — nay most, is a criminal thing ; and Her Majesty's Government arc 
 wanton and reckless and criminal for attempting to bind up the 
 fate of the English with that of the Irish Church. Now I want to 
 know, if my house adjoins my neighbour's and both stand under 
 the same roof, am I guilty of a wanton, of a reckless, of a criminal 
 act when, even although my foundations are deeper and my walls 
 thicker, and my beams broader, and my joists more fire-proof, than 
 my neighbour's, I venture to suggest that if a fire breaks out in his 
 house it may possibly extend to and injure mine? 
 
 But then we are told that the Church of England need not have 
 any fear because she is firm in the affections of the people. My 
 Lords, I believe she is firm in the affections of the majority of the 
 people of England, and I should be very hopeful of her safety if 
 those who had to decide it were the people of England. But those 
 who say so, assuredly forget how any question affecting the Church 
 of England will come to be decided. Will it be decided by the 
 people of England ? My Lords, it will not. It will be decided by
 
 on the Irish Church. 39 
 
 Parliament, by the House of Commons. And whom will the House 
 of Commons represent ? My Lords, do not imagine you will have 
 ail at once a gross and open measure proposed in the House of 
 Commons to disestablish and disendow the Church of England. 
 There will be nothing of this kind, but you will have, year after year^ 
 measure after measure proposed, bit-by-bit legislation, all having 
 the same tendency, and all going to impair in some way or other the 
 standing and coherence of the English Church. And who will vote 
 upon these questions ? The people of England ? No. There will 
 be the representatives of Ireland ; rather more than one half of them 
 representing constituencies flushed with the recent triumph over the 
 Church in their own land, and eager to add to that triumph. We 
 know how they will vote. Then there will be the remainder of the 
 Irish representatives, returned by constituencies stung with resent- 
 ment and grief and pain at the way in which they have been 
 treated and betrayed. We can imagine how they too will vote. 
 Then you will have the Scotch members, at present almost all re- 
 turned by constituencies holding voluntary opinions, and who, if as 
 Mr. Miall says, the Scotch Kirk is to be the next victim, will have 
 no establishment of their own left to defend. You will have them 
 added to the Irish members. Then there will be the representatives 
 of English constituencies, no small number, who are influenced by 
 voluntary opinions ; and in that state of things, will the affections 
 of the people of England be able to preserve, inviolate, the safety 
 of the English Church ? 
 
 I must now, with your Lordships' permission, add a few words 
 on the effect which these proposals will have on the security of 
 property. I think it is very important that we should understand 
 upon what principle we are invited to act as regards ecclesiastical 
 property. The proposition now is to secularize, for the first time, 
 ]3roperty which, from time immemorial, has been devoted to eccle- 
 siastical purposes. Remember, in the course of our parliamentary 
 history, this has never yet been done. What is the true view of 
 the position and nature of ecclesiastical property ? The noble 
 Duke (Argyll) says it is perhaps a technical view to take, but that 
 there is no corporation of the Church; that there are individual 
 corporations, such as Bishops and Incumbents, but that the Church 
 itself is no corporation. My Lords, this is indeed a technical view, 
 because it is one which wholly fails to comprehend and to appreciate 
 the broad and substantial view of the question. No doubt a lawyer
 
 40 Sijeech of the Lord Chancellor 
 
 will tell you that you have in the Cliurch individual corporations, 
 such as bishops, and rectors, and incumbents. But for whom do 
 tliey hold the property they possess ? Is it for their own enjoy- 
 ment and benefit ? Can they do what they please with it ? 
 Certainly not. They hold it as trustees for the whole Church, for 
 the laity and the clergy alike ; and in that sense, in that larger 
 and wider view, in that comprehensive and corporate capacity, the 
 Church, and not the individual corporations are the persons entitled 
 to the benefit of the property. Now, it is said that there is a 
 great distinction between ecclesiastical and private property. I 
 never said there was not. The distinction is this, — with regard to 
 private property, every owner of it has a right to do with it ^vhat 
 he likes. With regard to ecclesiastical property, because it is held 
 in trust for others, that trust has to be protected, and therefore, as 
 to property of this description, the State has a duty to j^erform. 
 But the only duty which the State has to perform, and the only 
 power which the State, morally speaking, possesses, is the duty and 
 the power to see that the trusts are executed, and that a proper 
 object of the trust remains. And, my Lords, provided the trust is 
 executed and the object of the trust remains, I maintain that Par- 
 liament is no more competent, morally, to deal with property of 
 that kind than it is to deal with private property. That is the 
 whole principle applicable to the case, and the only question 
 is, as to an abuse of the trust or a failure of the object. 
 Now, as to any abuse of the trust, Ave have had every speaker 
 admitting that, whatever may have been the case in times past, 
 the clergy of the Church in Ireland are now performing their duty 
 in a manner worthy of all praise. Well, then, has there been a 
 failure in the object of the trust ? Tlie noble Earl (Granville) con- 
 tended there was, and he made it out in this way. He said that 
 when Queen Elizabeth confirmed these possessions to the Irish 
 Church, she had a full expectation that the whole country w^ould 
 become Protestant, and that the endowments would, therefore, be 
 for the benefit of the whole country. Now, I do not in the least 
 know, nor I think does the noble Earl know, what Queen Elizabeth 
 may have thought with regard to Ireland ; but it is certain tliat when 
 Queen Elizabeth confirmed the English Church in its possessions, 
 she intended — for she made her intention extremely clear — that 
 there should be no nonconformity, and that the whole of England 
 should conform to the English Church. Therefore, you might as well
 
 071 the Irish Church. 41 
 
 ■€ay that because the expectation and intention of Queen Elizabeth 
 ^vere defeated in England, there was a failure of the objects in their 
 entirety which she had in view. But it has been said that there 
 are no converts made in Ireland. I should be prepared to contro- 
 vert that statement, but it is not possible in this House to examine 
 into the case of individual converts. But let us take a broader 
 view than the view of individual instances. We are told now that 
 the great statistical authority as to the Irish Church in the days 
 subsequent to Queen Elizabeth is Sir William Petty. I will accept 
 his authority, although it is, I think, Mr. Hallam who says that 
 Sir William Petty's conjectures are ' prodigiously vague.' Well, 
 Sir W. Petty says that at the time he writes, at the close of the 
 seventeenth century, there were 100,000 Churchmen in Ireland out 
 of a whole population of 1,100,000. That is, one in every eleven. 
 There are 700,000 now. If you multiply 700,000 by 11, you get 
 a population of something like 7,500,000, whereas the population 
 of Ireland is only 5,500,000. Therefore you have a Church in 
 Ireland, according to Sir W. Petty's calculation, increasing in a 
 ^verymuch greater ratio than any other denomination since the time 
 of which he wrote. If that be so, then there is no failure of the 
 object of the trust. You have, therefore, neither of the grounds 
 which would justify the interference of the legislature with eccle- 
 ■siastical property. Then, my Lords, are we right or are we not, in 
 ■saying that the security of property must be affected by legislation 
 of this kind? My Lords, what must happen? The next time 
 there is a Government to be attacked, the next time that some 
 •device has to be discovered for organizing a ' calm and dispas- 
 ■sionate ' attack on something that excites the envy of those who do 
 liot possess it, what more easy than to say — taking a case which 
 attracts considerable attention — ' Let us deal with private endow- 
 ments ? ' I understood the noble Duke who began the debate to- 
 Right (Argyll) to lay down broadly as his opinion, that ' any money 
 ;given to Churches the State might deal with as it thought fit.' 
 Well, between the case of private endowments and the case of cor- 
 l^orate property the transition is quite easy. And how will private 
 property be dealt with? Not, probably, by some proposition to 
 confiscate it, but by measures to interfere with entails and with 
 settlements, and with descents and successions and wills, and thus 
 to establish the principle that the State has a right to change the 
 -disposition of private property ; and for such a proceeding legis-
 
 42 Speech of the Lord Chancellor 
 
 lation like the present will become a precedent. In the pamphlet 
 of the noble Earl (Russell) he refers to the estates of the Bedford 
 family. The noble Earl says the case of those estates is different 
 from those of the Church, inasmuch as the heir of the Duke of 
 Bedford succeeds to the Bedford estates as a matter of course : 
 whereas with regard to a bishopric, the new Bishop does not succeed 
 as a matter of course. My answer to that is, that the heir of the 
 Duke of Bedford succeeds as a matter of course as long as you 
 maintain the present law ; the successor of the Bishop succeeds as 
 a matter of course as long as you maintain the present law : but if 
 you alter the present law as regards the one, I want to know what 
 security you have that the law may not be altered also as regards 
 the other. I will not enter into the anecdote the noble Earl 
 (Russell) has told us to-night, when he said an Earl of Derby of 
 an earlier date had shut up the then Earl of Bedford in a castle. 
 But the noble Lord did not tell us what that Earl of Bedford had 
 done. 
 
 Earl Russell. — The then Earl of Derby wished to shut him up. 
 
 The Lord Chancellor. — Oh, he only wished to shut him up ! 
 The noble Earl, I think, suggested that the Earl of Derby did 
 this because the Earl of Bedford would not join the conspiracy 
 to dethrone Queen Elizabeth. I only referred to the subject in 
 order to remind the noble Earl that there is another version of 
 that story, which states that the Earl of Derby of that day was 
 supposed to have been poisoned by the Jesuits because he would 
 not enter into the conspiracy himself. 
 
 But, my Lords, how will this measure bear upon the supre- 
 macy of the Crown ? You have now a Protestant head of the 
 State. You have in each country of the United Kingdom, in 
 close connexion with the State, a form of the religion of the 
 Sovereign. You have this secured by a tripartite contract be- 
 tween the three kingdoms. For, my Lords, it is an error to> 
 suppose that the contract on this subject is in the Act of Union 
 with L-eland alone. Li the Act of Union with Scotland, in 170G,. 
 it is made a "fundamental term" of the Union with Scotland, 
 that the Sovereign of Great Britain shall undertake to maintain, 
 and preserve inviolately, the settlement of the Church, as by law 
 established, " within the kingdoms of England and L-eland." The 
 same stipulation is again made a "fundamental" term of the 
 Union with Ireland a centurv later. You have thus in Ireland
 
 on the Irish Church. 43 
 
 the Sovereign of the United Kingdom the legal and recognised 
 head in matters ecclesiastical as well as civil. But you have in 
 Ireland, side by side with the Eoyal Supremacy, an ecclesiastical 
 supremacy asserted, which ignores and sets aside the supremacy 
 of the Sovereign. And if you withdraw and terminate that part 
 of the Royal Supremacy which the connexion of the Church with 
 the State asserts and recognises, you leave the rival and anta- 
 gonistic supremacy in undisputed possession of the field.* 
 
 My Lords, I wish to say a few words about the origin 
 of this measure. I never wish to inquire into the motives for 
 the course of action of public men. But we have had the con- 
 sideration of that question thrust upon us. We have been told 
 by the noble Earl (Granville), repeating what has often been said 
 before, that what led to the proposal of this Bill was a statement 
 which is alleged to have been made, but which never was made 
 in the sense or meaning which is alleged, by the Government in 
 the other House of Parliament with reference to their policy 
 towards Ireland. My Lords, I think the noble Earl has himself 
 shown that this measure was determined on by its author 
 long before. He told us that in a conversation he had with 
 Mr. Gladstone at the commencement of last year, Mr. Glad- 
 stone stated to him that one of the first duties of the Liberal 
 party would be to undertake the question, in the sense in which 
 it has now been undertaken, of the Established Church in Ireland. 
 And, my Lords, in the pamphlet to which I have already referred 
 of the noble Earl (Russell) who sits beside him, which I cannot 
 suppose was given to the world without some consultation with 
 the party with which he always acts, the noble Earl (Russell) 
 announced that it was not for one moment to be endured that this 
 Session should pass without a proposition being made in Parlia- 
 ment by the Liberal party through Mr. Gladstone, with regard to 
 the Irish Church. If that be so — when it was Mr. Gladstone's 
 conviction expressed to his colleague last year — and when it was 
 the conviction of the noble Lord (Russell) at the commencement 
 of the present Session, I want to know how it can be pretended 
 that this attack upon the Irish Church was occasioned by, or was 
 
 * From the lateness of the hour the above reference to the question of the 
 Supremacy of the Crown was omitted in the Speech in the House; but it 
 forms a part of the whole argument.
 
 41 Speech of the Lord Chancellor 
 
 •llie coiisequonco of, the statement erroneously attributed to the 
 (rovernment in the House of Commons ? 
 
 But that is not all. That conversation with Mr. Gladstone, 
 we are told, occurred at the beginning of last j-ear. Now, in the 
 summer of 1865, Mr. Gladstone, then a candidate for the Univer- 
 sity of Oxford, wrote to one of his constituents who was seeking 
 for some explanation of his views on the Irish Church; and at 
 that time he said, — 
 
 '■ The question of the Irish Church is remote, and ap- 
 parently out of all bearing on the practical politics of the 
 day. I think I have marked strongly my sense of the respon- 
 sibility attaching to the opening of such a question. One 
 thing I may add, because I think it is a clear landmark, in 
 any measure dealing with the Irish Church, I think (I scarcely 
 expect ever to be called upon to share in such a measure) the 
 Act of Union must be recognised.' 
 
 Now, this was in the summer of 1865, and there having been 
 in the interval no parliamentary discussion on the subject whatever, 
 it is perhaps a pardonable curiosity which leads me to ask how it 
 came to pass that within eighteen months Mr. Gladstone, in con- 
 sultation, we are told, with the noble Earl (Granville), announced 
 to him that in his opinion it was the first step in the policy of 
 the Liberal party to proceed to destroy the Irish Church. The 
 noble Duke (Argyll), with that happy view which he ever takes of 
 tlie failings and imperfections of every creature in the horizon, 
 except the one who himself pronounces the criticism and the con- 
 demnation, referred to my right honourable friend the First 
 Minister of the Crown, and spoke of the cunning of animals who 
 could not protect themselves by strength. Now I should be sorry 
 to use, with reference to this letter of Mr. Gladstone, the term 
 •' cunning,' I believe it was written in perfect sincerity, according 
 to what Mr. Gladstone at the time believed. But what I do say 
 is this, that the most cunning of all the cunning animals to which 
 the noble Duke referred, if he had desired to baffle and mislead 
 the innocent and unsuspecting person who made the inquiry, could 
 Jiot have been more happy or adroit in the expressions he used than 
 was the author of this letter. 
 
 My Lords, the noble Duke says the great office of party 
 •discipline and party warfare in this country is to identify the 
 fortunes of a party with great public measures. I agree gene-
 
 on the Irish Church. 45- 
 
 rally in that view. But I ask, is this measure a great public- 
 measure in the proper sense of that term ? That it will have- 
 a great effect upon the Church which is to be the subject of it 
 I entirely admit, but by a great measure I mean a measure well' 
 considered in all its parts, and as to no part of which there is any 
 reticence or desire to conceal the whole scope of its effect and 
 operation from the party who makes it their political programme. 
 Now, can that be said of this measure? You propose to dis- 
 establish and disendow the Irish Church ; what do you propose to- 
 do with the funds of the Church? You are going to apply them? 
 to Irish purposes ; I ask to what Irish purposes ? Are you going- 
 to apply them to the rehef of the poor ? I apprehend not ; that 
 would be simply taking the burden off property which now bears it^ 
 Are you going to apply them to the primary education of the 
 people? If you do, it will be a strange benefit to Ireland tl:kat 
 simply deprives Ireland of some 300,000/. or 400,000/. a-year, which 
 at present flows there from the Imperial Exchequer. Are you. 
 going to apply them to the higher or middle-class education of the 
 country? Do you not know that the Roman Catholic Church' 
 distinctly and uniformly refuses to have any participation in- 
 donations of that kind, unless they have them on their own terms^ 
 and upon a system of education which you have always refused to^ 
 admit? You object to those who would alter the arrangements 
 of the Church by taking the endowments of one parish and carrying 
 some part of them to another. Are you going to apply these 
 funds to Irish purposes in the particular parish from which the- 
 endowments emanate? I want to know how that is to be done? 
 What is the reason why there is this concealment as to what the- 
 intention is with regard to these funds? My Lords, there is one- 
 explanation, and one only, that I can give, and that, I am sorry to- 
 say, whatever in other respects I might think of the measure,, 
 deprives it, to my mind, of the character of a great measure, — I 
 say the object of the concealment which has been practised as to- 
 the appropriation of these funds is to render possible the temporary 
 concurrence of the votes of those whom you know perfectly well it 
 would be impossible, if you were at once to reveal the appropriation 
 you are about to make of these funds, to combine for any united 
 course of action. 
 
 My Lords, I feel I owe your Lordships a very sincere apology 
 for having so long delayed you in my comments on this Bill, and on.
 
 46 Speech of the Lord Chancellor 
 
 the policy of its promoters. Let me, however, say one word with 
 reference to the advice you have received from various noble Lords 
 who sit on the front Opposition-bench as to the principle on which 
 you should perform your duty with regard to this Bill. Several 
 noble Lords sitting on the Opposition-benches have referred, I 
 thought with some bitterness, to the effect which the Bill of last 
 year will have on the constituencies of the country. My Lords, it 
 appears to me a strange thing that these noble Lords who have 
 always professed to be such very ardent reformers, should, whenever 
 they come to speak of the legislation of last year, never fail to 
 communicate to your Lordships the impression that they look on 
 that legislation with apprehension and regret. The noble Earl 
 (Clarendon) spoke of the leap in the dark which you had taken. 
 I know the noble Earl is not the author of that saying, but 
 he made it part of his argument. He said you did not know 
 what the new constituencies would be, and he recommended 
 you to pass this Bill, because the future was so much in uncer- 
 tainty. I must confess, my Lords, that the noble Earl's reasons 
 would have led me to a different conclusion. This Bill has passed 
 the present House of Commons, which is about to come to an 
 end. That House itself said that the ultimate decision as to 
 the fate of the Irish Church was not matter for them, — that it 
 ought to be remitted to a future Parliament. The noble Earl does 
 not know what that future Parliament will be, — he does not know 
 whether it will approve or disapprove the disestablishment and 
 disendowment of the L'ish Church. Now, these to my mind are 
 reasons why the whole question should be allowed to go to the 
 new Parliament unaffected by this Bill, in order that it might deal 
 with that question with full freedom. But the noble Earl (Gran- 
 ville) who moved the second reading, not, I agree, in any words 
 of menace, but in more of blandishment and entreaty, asked your 
 Lordships to take no course which would bring you into collision 
 with the other House of Parliament. My Lords, I value the 
 honour of your Lordships' House, and the harmonious action of 
 the two Branches of the Legislature, as much as any of your Lord- 
 ships ; but I maintain that the way to promote this harmony is 
 for each House frankly, fairly, and respectfully, to discuss on its 
 own merits every question that comes before them, and, if neces- 
 sary, on every question to pronounce their opinion by their votes. 
 My Lords, if the day should ever come when a measure carried in
 
 on the Irish Church. 47 
 
 baste tlirongli the other House of Parliament, and brought up and 
 presented to yonr Lordships for the first time, shall be accepted by 
 jour Lordships, not because you approve of it — nay, while you 
 disapprove of it — but merely because it has been carried by a 
 majority in the House of Commons, the influence, the independ- 
 ence of your Lordships' House, the respect of the country for your 
 Lordships — nay, more — the respect of yourselves for yourselves, 
 will be at an end. 
 
 My Lords, differing, therefore, from the noble Earl as to the 
 duty now devolving upon you, I ask you to reject this Bill. I 
 might well be content to do this on the score of the vices and 
 defects of the Bill itself, and of the perverse and blundering inge- 
 nuity with which it endeavours to accomplish the worst possible 
 thing in the worst possible way. But I ask you to reject this 
 Bill on higher grounds. I ask you to reject it because it is the 
 commencement of a policy upon which your Lordships have not 
 even yet been consulted, but w^iich policy you will be taken to have 
 accepted if you approve this Bill. That policy is nothing short of 
 the devotion to secular purposes of funds hitherto held sacred, the 
 severance of the Union of Church with the State, and the curtail- 
 ment of the Supremacy of the Crown. The fruits and conse- 
 quences of that policy, in our opinion, will be, not the pacification 
 of L'eland, but the perpetuation of the conflict of races — the under- 
 mining of the security of property — ■ the arrestment of the pro- 
 gress of social improvement and toleration — and the quenching — 
 so far as it is in the power of legislation to quench it — of the light 
 of the Reformation in that country. My Lords, these are the vast 
 issues involved in this Bill. These are the issues involved in 
 your Lordships' decision now, and they are the issues yet to be 
 presented to the country in the great appeal to its enlarged consti- 
 tuencies. My Lords, in that appeal — ^for I agree with the noble 
 Duke (Argyll) that it is fitting that a Government should uj)hold 
 a standard of political faith, — in that great appeal the Govern- 
 ment will stand as the defenders of all that this Bill and the 
 policy of its promoters would seek to overthrow. By the result of 
 that appeal we are prepared to abide; and, my Lords, be that 
 result what it may, — and I, for one, have confidence in the true 
 heart and faith of the coimtry, — a nobler cause for which to fight, 
 — a fairer field in which to stand or fall, — no minister and no 
 statesman need desire.
 
 PUBLICATIONS 
 
 ISSUED BY THE NATIONAL PROTESTANT UNION. 
 
 The Great Protestant Demonstration at Hillsborough, 
 
 October 30, 1867, Authentic Eeport IcL 
 
 The Reformation in Ireland and the Irish Language. 
 
 Two lietters. By Spes ' . IcL 
 
 The Church In Ireland. By Spes Id. 
 
 Why is tlie Church in Ireland to be Robbed ? By Spes. ^d^ 
 
 To the Protestant Electors of England, by an Ex-M.P. Id, 
 
 Erom the Protestants of Ireland to their Protestant 
 
 BrethreD of Great Britain \d^ 
 
 The Disestablishment of the Church in Ireland . . JfZ^ 
 
 The Church in Ireland and Her Assailants, by Richard 
 
 Nugent, Esq. 2d.. 
 
 The Clergy of the Church in Ireland Weighed in the 
 Balance, and the true cause of the condition of Ireland ex- 
 plained 2d^. 
 
 The Irish Branch of the United Church of England 
 
 and Ireland . ^d,. 
 
 Speech of J. C. Colquhoun, Esq., at a Meeting in De- 
 fence of the Church in Ireland at St. James's Hall, April 
 17, 1868 Id.^ 
 
 Fallacies and Fictions relating to the Irish Churcli 
 
 Estabhshment Exposed. By A. E. Gayer, Esq., Q.C., LL.D. 2d.. 
 
 St. Patrick's Successors : Who are they ? A Review. 2d^ 
 
 Speeches Delivered at the Great Meeting in St. James's 
 Hall, May 6, 1868, in support of the United Church of Eng- 
 land and Ireland. His Grace the Archbishop of Canter-^ 
 BURY in the Chair. Authorised Report, Revised by the 
 Speakers. Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, London . 6"(C 
 
 Some of the Arguments by which Mr. Gladstone's Re- 
 solutions are supported Considered. By Lord Redesb-als, 
 (Reprinted by permission.) JiL 
 
 The Speech of the Lord Chancellor delivered in the 
 
 House of Lords, June 29, 1868, on the Church in Ireland Bill 2i^.. 
 
 The Speech of Lord Redesdale, delivered in the House- 
 of Lords, June 26, 1868, on the Church in Ireland Bill . , id^ 
 
 Justice to Ireland. By the Loed Bishop of Caelislb . 2.d^ 
 
 The Proposed Disestablishment of Protestantism in Ire- 
 land, in its Bearings upon the Religion and Libei-ties ®f the 
 Empire. By James Begg, D.D., Edinburgh .... SeE. 
 
 A reduction made on takhitj a larfjc ninnher for distribution.